


In the Quiet

by stardropdream



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Camping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Season 8 Doesn't Exist, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Team as Family, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26029582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: “Did Dr. Santiago give you homework this weekend?”Shiro hums. “Saying it like that makes it sound like I’m in school again.”It’s not quite a deflection, but even if it was, Keith wouldn’t judge him for it or call him out on it. Buthomeworkis what Shiro and his therapist call it when he has something to accomplish before his next session.Or: The Paladins go on a camping trip for the weekend and Shiro follows his therapist's advice on being vulnerable.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 136
Kudos: 336





	In the Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my 100th sheith fic! ♥ I'm so grateful to be here in this fandom and to be writing these boys-- thanks for being here with me.
> 
> This fic is what I've been lovingly calling "the Shiro goes to therapy fic". This is a fic I've been working on and off for the past year and a half. For some obvious reasons, it was actually really hard to approach it and write it, and in some ways I feel like I didn't do this topic justice (or the fic didn't turn out exactly as I'd hoped). 
> 
> Just as a broad disclaimer, I did my best to represent this journey for Shiro, but of course every person's journey is different. While I did draw on a lot of personal experience with this, my experience in therapy is CBT, not CPT. I don't want this fic to read like it's a how-to guide on mental health issues (I am hardly an expert!) and that Shiro's path in this fic is the only path for every person (or even the only path for him). 
> 
> Finally, while there is nothing that I believe is graphic enough to be a trigger warning (please correct me if you think otherwise), a general warning that this fic does deal with mental health issues as it pertains to Shiro's PTSD. 
> 
> Also, I want to give a huge thank you to all of you who supported me in writing this, whether directly or indirectly. I was always so grateful whenever I mentioned this fic and it was met with support and excitement. I hope it's worth the wait. ♥ 
> 
> And my eternal gratitude to super-beta [Meg](https://twitter.com/kedawen), who is a rockstar (and always wrangles my damn commas for me).

“Okay, I think that’s everything we’ll need,” Hunk says as he finishes loading up their supplies. He wipes his forearm across his brow and pats the fifth massive cooler filled to the brim with homemade food. 

The Paladins are only camping out for the weekend, but Hunk’s prepared them for at least two weeks of snacks and meals. 

“Better safe than sorry,” Hunk says when Pidge points that out. He slams the van’s trunk closed with a definitive nod. “I’ve learned my lesson.” 

It makes everyone laugh, that sort of morbid chuckle that comes from a group of friends who have been through hell together. They know what it means to go hungry, to be ill-prepared, to not have enough. 

Shiro remembers a time when most of them cringed at his dark humor. He casts a glance at Keith, standing at his side. Keith’s smile is sardonic, and his eyes are already on Shiro. Shiro watches Keith’s smile gentle when their eyes meet— lately, Shiro hasn’t been able to stop noticing. 

He’s not sure if that’s the way Keith’s always looked at him or if it’s just that Shiro’s paying closer attention now. 

It’s easy to smile back, regardless. Keith sways a little closer, pressing up against his side in a little nudge before he rights himself again. Shiro tries not to read into it too much, but just like he hasn’t been able to stop noticing the way Keith looks at him, he also can’t stop _hoping._

But the world continues around them, drawing Shiro’s attention away. The Paladins are buzzing around, organizing and packing and talking over each other. It’s their usual brand of controlled chaos. 

“Should we go over the list one last time?” Allura says. 

“Nah, we’re out of here!” Pidge crows, hooking her arm around Allura’s shoulders and dragging her towards the front of the van. The gesture makes Allura laugh and she lets Pidge drag her along. 

The rest follow after Pidge and Allura, piling into the van. Shiro’s on first driving shift because he is the _Responsible One_ , apparently. He settles in the driver’s seat and isn’t surprised when Keith ducks beneath Lance’s arm to poach the passenger seat, slipping easily to his side. 

Lance protests this injustice with a loud, betrayed squawk that quickly becomes a grumbled pout as he’s delegated to the very back of the van, packed in alongside the supplies. Hunk, Pidge, and Allura hunker down in the van’s middle row, squashed together but looking no-less uncomfortable for it. 

“Everyone’s seat belts buckled?” Keith asks, twisting around to eye them all.

“Yes, _Dad,_ ” Pidge teases and Keith’s laugh is a crisp, shining thing. It’s like a bark of startled surprise, swallowed up by the others laughing. It makes Shiro smile. 

“Paladin Camping Trip is a-go!” Lance crows from the back, seemingly bounced back from his pouting. 

Keith pulls up the map on his PADD as Shiro starts driving, navigating for him. It’s not a far drive, just a few vargas (hours, Shiro reminds himself silently; they use hours again, not vargas) up north. 

“So you’re basically going to drive for an hour, turn left, and drive for another hour,” Keith says, looking over the map.

“Easy enough,” Shiro says and flashes Keith a grin. “What would I do without you?” 

Keith shrugs, eyes sparkling with delight when he says, “Get lost, I’m sure. What if you turn right and I’m not here to stop you?” 

“A tragedy, I’m sure.” 

They’re supposedly breaking up the driving into shifts, but Pidge still doesn’t have a license (“I still know how to drive though!”) and Allura doesn’t know anything about Terran cars, so Shiro suspects that he’ll likely drive the whole way. He doesn’t mind. He’s flown solo missions that lasted longer than this car ride. 

He finds it strangely relaxing, to pilot something on the ground rather than the air. The mechanics of space travel are far different from a clunky old van they’re borrowing from the Holts, but Shiro’s capable. 

The Paladins in the back are rowdy for the first hour or so, ribbing each other and trying to teach Allura some traditional roadtrip car games. Allura, of course, is impressed by all the sights outside the window, especially once they get outside the urban center, heading out towards the mountains and the forests. 

Keith, ever vigilant, knows exactly when to twist around in his seat a few times to yell at all of them to be quieter. Shiro doesn’t even need to say anything— he’s sure Keith can see the tension rising in Shiro’s shoulders once they start getting loud enough to make him almost flinch. But Shiro’s used to all the ways Keith saves him, even in the smaller, mundane ways. 

Otherwise, it’s an uneventful few hours. After that first hour, the Paladins get tired and bored and drop off into unexpected naps. Hunk’s the first to go down, then Pidge flops against his side, followed by Allura at the window. Lance is the last to go, but starts snoring once there’s no one left to respond to his observations about vanity license plates. 

Shiro breathes out as the silence descends. He glances over at Keith to find him still awake and watching him. 

“Like children,” Keith says with a roll of his eyes. His expression is gentle, though, and it betrays his affection. 

Shiro flashes him a little grin before he turns his attention back towards the road. “You really do sound like a dad.” 

“If that nickname sticks, I’m leaving the group,” Keith says.

“You don’t fool me,” Shiro says with a laugh. He hears Keith chuckle. 

They drive in silence, watching the world unfold before them. They’re deep enough in the forests that there are only the occasional cars passing by. It’s quiet, and peaceful, and Shiro’s never minded silence with Keith even if, after everything with the astral plane, Shiro tends to avoid silence in general. With Keith, it’s always comfortable.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Keith tilt his head, still watching him. “Hey.” 

“Mm?” 

“Did Dr. Santiago give you homework this weekend?” 

Shiro hums. “Saying it like that makes it sound like I’m in school again.” 

It’s not quite a deflection, but even if it was, Keith wouldn’t judge him for it or call him out on it. But _homework_ is what Shiro and his therapist call it when he has something to accomplish before his next session. 

Sometimes it’s literal homework: filling out a worksheet or writing pages and pages of thoughts. Other times, it’s something more behavioral or intentional: practice mindful meditation once a week or set a reasonable goal that can be accomplished between one session and the next. 

Sometimes it’s more difficult, like listening to the tapes he and his therapist make during a session. Once, she recorded a session on video. That homework is always the hardest— having to hear himself, see himself, looking too fragile, too vulnerable. 

“Yeah,” Shiro says after a strange enough pause that it feels slightly awkward to answer the question. 

Keith never asks for elaboration, which Shiro appreciates. Shiro suspects Keith wouldn’t ask about it at all, would respect Shiro’s privacy, except for the one time Shiro admitted that he likes Keith knowing— it holds him accountable. Since then, Keith always asks. 

Keith nods and smiles that little smile that makes Shiro feel warm on the inside, like he’s done something that’s worth being proud about. Shiro reminds himself to keep his attention on the road, not on Keith’s handsome face. 

“Are you excited for this weekend?” Shiro asks, fingers curled tight around the steering wheel.

Keith tips his head back and groans. “Can’t wait for these fools to give me a perpetual headache.”

“Remember, you can’t fool me,” Shiro says. “I know you’re excited.” 

Keith huffs but doesn’t deny it, his eyes glittering. Shiro yanks his attention back onto the road _again._ It’s hard to look away from Keith sometimes. Most of the time, if he’s honest. Sometimes Shiro gets overwhelmed with how much he wants. He rarely lets himself indulge in fantasies, but a small part of him imagines what this camping trip might be like if it were just the two of them. 

He's happy to be here with all their friends, of course. But driving with Keith, just the two of them speaking in low voices, leaves Shiro feeling centered in his longing. 

“That one left-turn is coming up, by the way,” Keith says. 

-

The Paladins return from war and nothing is fixed. 

Defeating their last great enemy doesn’t mean that all is solved, not when all they’ve done is disrupt an empire that stretched literally thousands of years across a universe. Disruption is not the same as dismantling and dismantling can’t be done in a few short decaphoebs. It’s hard, bitter work, and every day is hard. 

The Paladins come home from war, but they do not know peace for some time. 

For a while, everything is an enemy to Shiro. He can’t sleep. He barely eats. The nightmares are ever-present and he wakes up choking, sure he’ll never breathe again. He wakes up sobbing, sure that the cruelty he was made to do during captivity, during war, is somehow _him_ now. That he is cruel. That he is a weapon. He doesn’t tell anyone about the nightmares, but it doesn’t stop him from knowing the others are feeling the same. 

They are all like newborn fawns, startled by sights and sounds. Shiro can’t handle loud noises. Hunk stops using kitchen timers, the ringing alarm too shocking when it pierces the silence, the ticking down too much like a bomb. Pidge stops sitting with her back to doors, skittish and lurking in corners. Allura focuses on studying more and more Altean alchemy until she makes herself sick, because to stop means to be alone with thoughts she’s not ready to think about. 

They all make do with what they can. Shiro lies awake most nights, knowing he’s never going to sleep. When he closes his eyes, he sees too many things— a jumbled up ball of thoughts and strangeness, of everything they’ve ever been through. Even the good, sometimes, feels like the bad, even the remarkable can feel like torture. 

It's Shiro who suggests to the others that they should talk with someone professional. They’ve seen doctor after doctor for medical issues, for physical injuries, and Shiro’s used to that. But he sees the growing circles under Hunk’s eyes, the fatigue saturating each move Allura makes, how thin Pidge gets. He suggests it, expecting them to ignore it. 

But they prove him wrong, and then turn it back on him, too. 

“I’ll make an appointment if you make one,” Pidge says fiercely. 

Hunk nods. “We can all hold each other accountable.” 

Shiro wants to laugh but he also wants to cry. It’s like them to do this, in the end, and he shouldn’t be surprised. He’s used to giving advice and never following it. This is the first time he’s actually felt called out on it— at least, by someone who isn’t Keith. 

“I think it’d be good for us all,” Lance says and bites his lip, eyes darting between each of them, waiting for approval. 

The war is over, but they aren’t done watching one another’s backs. 

And so they do it. 

Shiro goes through three therapists before he finds one that he thinks he can work with. It takes time for him to understand what will work for him and what he wants to do with this. There are times when he thinks he’ll just quietly let it subside, support the others through their journey and never bring it up again. But those thoughts pass by quickly when he imagines their disappointment and Keith’s concern. So he keeps going. Shiro’s always been a self-starter, always been independent, and he spends many nights researching. 

He learns what questions to ask therapists. He knows now to ask for what modalities they use, if they’ve worked with patients like him (or as close to like him as one can get, he thinks with no small amount of self-deprecation), what they think would work for him, what a potential treatment plan might be. 

When he ultimately decides on what type to try, he finds a therapist for twelve sessions of ninety minutes each. 

“Hard to believe I could be cured in three months,” he mumbles to himself. All his research points to CPT working in about three months. 

Even as he says it, he knows it can’t be that easy. 

-

The Paladins arrive at the campsite by mid-afternoon. 

Shiro ends up driving the whole way up. He didn’t have the heart to wake the others up from their naps and it was just as easy to keep going. Even Keith ended up nodding off about an hour away from their destination— after that one left turn. 

Shiro tends to hate the silence, but Keith near him kept him steady. He didn’t mind driving and he liked glancing over at Keith’s sleeping face— how gentle and quiet he looked, the perfect sooty fan of his eyelashes, his hair in his eyes, his breath rising and falling past his lips. Beautiful, of course, even when sleeping. 

Always beautiful, if Shiro’s honest. 

Shiro parks at the site and sits there in a long silence, just absorbing it. He studies Keith, unable to hold back his indulgent smile. Then he turns and pokes each Paladin awake gently, not wanting to rattle or startle them. Allura awakens with a snort, Hunk yawns loud enough to crack his jaw, and Pidge shoves her hand in Lance’s face to get him to wake. 

Shiro touches Keith’s shoulder and that’s enough to break him from sleep. He yawns, rubs at his jaw, and then his eyes, and says, “You should have woken me up.” 

Shiro just smiles and shakes his head. “It’s good you can rest.” 

“Wake me up next time,” Keith says. “I want to keep you company.” 

“Okay, Keith.” 

Keith makes up for his self-perceived failings by unloading the van of its heaviest items before Shiro can take on the task. But Shiro beats him to setting up the tents, kicking away stray rocks to keep the ground as flat and comfortable as possible. They have a collection of two-person tents, so Shiro sets up the one he’ll share with Keith, then sets up Lance and Hunk’s when Lance asks, then goes ahead and sets up Pidge and Allura’s for good measure. 

“Are you even going to fit in that?” Pidge says, teasing.

Shiro looks up from his bundle of rain gear, currently trying to determine if he should set that up, too. It’s supposed to be clear skies the entire weekend, but that doesn’t mean dew can’t still seep in. 

“Huh?” he asks. 

Pidge nods to the tent he’ll share with Keith. “Your feet are going to poke straight out.” 

“I’m not _that_ tall,” he protests. 

He looks over their tent with a frown. He thinks he’ll fit. Maybe it’ll be a tight squeeze, but he also doesn’t mind sleeping on his back with his knees up. It’s good for posture. Shiro is nothing if not adaptable. 

Keith finishes hauling out the last of the lawn chairs Hunk packed into the van, dusting off his hands before locking up. He turns to head over towards Shiro, tossing him the keys. Shiro grabs them midair and pockets them. 

“… Guess I’ll go get firewood with Allura,” Pidge says. “I think she’s itching to explore.” 

Sure enough, when they glance over towards Allura, she’s staring longingly into the woods, hands clasped together. 

“I’ll get water!” Lance says, grabbing the giant water jug. “There’s a stream nearby, right?”

He starts walking in the wrong direction. Hunk sighs and says, “I’ll go with him…” 

Shiro watches everyone scatter before he turns to Keith. “Guess we’re on tarp duty.” 

“We were supposed to be on tent duty, but you went ahead without me,” Keith says with an amused huff, darting to the tarps before Shiro can go about it alone. “Here. Help me.” 

Together, they unfold and hang the tarps, setting up shady areas near the fire and beyond the tents, just in case it does rain or someone needs some shade. It’s an easy task split between the two of them and they make quick work of it. 

That task complete, Keith focuses on bear-proofing the food. He ties off some ropes in different tree branches and hoists their food up to hang mid-air, well beyond seeking paws. 

There are remnants of an old firepit from the last campers at the site, so as Keith deals with the food, Shiro reorganizes the stones and digs out the old ashes. They move around the camp together, wordless but comfortable, and it almost feels domestic if not for the location. Shiro looks up as he finishes preparing the firepit just to watch Keith as he pulls on the ropes, his biceps flexing, hair in his eyes. 

“You’re pretty good at that,” Shiro says.

Keith flashes him a grin. “Mom and I had to deal with things a lot worse than bears on the whale.” 

Shiro laughs. “You ever think about how weird our life is?”

Keith ties the last rope off around the tree trunk and snorts. “All the damn time.” 

Of the scattered Paladins, Hunk and Lance return first, carrying the full jug of water between them, huffing and puffing over the effort of carrying it the half kilometer. 

“I forgot how much work camping can be,” Lance whines, flopping beneath the newly erected tarp for its shade, laid out flat like a starfish and gulping down air. It is a bit of an overdramatic reaction, but that’s always been Lance’s way. Shiro knows he’s having fun. 

Keith rolls his eyes and Hunk sets the jug up on the end of a log for easy access and easy boiling on the fire.

“The river and lake looked really pretty, though,” Hunk says. 

Pidge and Allura return shortly after that with armfuls of wood. Allura must have shapeshifted during the task, tall and massive like a Balmera and carrying Pidge on her shoulders. Allura carries most of the biggest logs in her arms while Pidge uses her sweater as a makeshift bundle for all the kindling and smaller pieces of dry leaves and bark. 

It all feels mundane, just gathering around the campsite and putting everything in order. It’s calming, surrounded by the sounds of nature, surrounded by the laughter and murmurs of their friends. No loud sounds, no alarms, no beeps, nothing that could trigger anxiety or fear.

Between the six of them, they make great time setting up the campsite. With the late afternoon stretching before them, there’s plenty of time to explore before the sun goes down. 

“Hunk’s right that the lake is pretty,” Lance says from inside his tent, squirming around. “So you know what that means…” He shuffles around inside and then, with a dramatic flourish and unzipping of his tent, he bursts out feet first wearing swim trunks. “Swimming time!” 

Lance goads them all into changing too, taking turns slipping into their tents. Lance claps along to some drill-sergeant pace even when they all start to ignore him, but that’s never stopped Lance from being Lance. 

Shiro hesitates as he slips into his swimsuit, aware of the scars. He’s not ashamed of them, not really; they’re only scars. But he knows what they look like, and he knows the Paladins haven’t seen him much without his shirt— except for maybe Keith, who helped him change a few times on the Black Lion when journeying home to Earth. He’s gotten more scars since then. 

They all have scars. That’s just the nature of war. 

Shiro pulls on a shirt before he exits the tent, slipping into his sandals and trying not to draw attention to the exposed parts of his arm and legs. If he acts like it’s not a big deal, then it isn’t a big deal. 

Keith’s waiting for him outside the tent, wearing a similar shirt and shorts combo. He’s also wearing a sun hat and a pair of sunglasses. The hat is strangely adorable, casting Keith’s face in a woven shadow, only little spots of sun peeking through and kissing his cheeks. 

Shiro wonders if it’d be appropriate to tell him that he’s cute. 

“I’ve got towels,” Hunk says, holding them up and saving Shiro from an embarrassing comment. 

They head to the lake, the walk a pleasant if boisterous one. As they round the bend and spot the lake, Shiro can understand the appeal. It’s pretty, crystalline blue and, according to Hunk, not too cold. It’s a large lake, stretching for several kilometers, bending and curving around the hills. It’s picturesque, like a postcard. 

The beach is less a sandy beach and more a craggy lining of pebbles and stones flattened by eons of erosion. It takes a few minutes of searching, but the Paladins eventually decide on setting their supplies down on a flattened outcropping of rock, overlooking the river as it drains into the lake. 

Shiro sits down on the sun-warmed rock with a pleased breath, stretching out his legs and kicking off his sandals. His swimsuit is newly purchased just for the trip— he can’t remember the last time he went swimming at all— and he feels strangely exposed wearing it. He reminds himself that they all have scars. His friends aren’t even looking at him or noticing his scars. Nobody is looking at him with pity. They’re all here, and they’re here to have fun and swim. That’s it.

His therapist would be proud of him. 

“Let’s go!” Pidge says, about to barrel off the outcropping of rock. Shiro grabs her gently by the hand before she can fling herself over the edge. 

“Sunscreen first,” he says.

Pidge throws her head back and groans. “Come on! It’s like, four in the afternoon!” 

“UV rays are out at all times of day,” Shiro says and holds up the bottle of sunscreen. “And you turn pink in five minutes flat. I’ve seen it.” 

“Ugh!” Pidge whines. 

“Listen to the man, Pidge! I don’t want to hear you complaining all night when you can’t lie down because you’re burned everywhere,” Lance says, and then cackles and dances away from Pidge’s well-aimed kick. 

Pidge huffs and slathers on some sunscreen, not looking that bothered by the gentle ribbing, her dramatics aside. She throws the bottle at Lance’s head when she’s done. 

“Ow, hey!” Lance says, then squawks louder when Pidge scoops him up and holds him over her head. “Hey! Hey, what—” 

He doesn’t get a chance to finish shrieking before Pidge is running them both off the edge of the rock outcropping. Lance howls in a strange mix of shock and joy as they go hurtling down into the water. It’s not a big drop at all, only about a meter and a half, but their splash is mighty as they enter the water. 

When they come back up for air, Pidge is cackling. She swims away before Lance can dunk her beneath the surface in revenge. 

Hunk is not nearly as spontaneous about entering the water. He keeps glancing down at it and then back at Allura. Allura smiles at him and takes his hand. 

“Together, then?” she asks. 

Instead of jumping off the ledge, they climb back down together and wade into the water from the beach. Allura dips her toe into the water to test the temperature first, delighted by the waves Lance and Pidge make from swimming around. 

“I’m not used to water like this,” Shiro hears Allura tell Hunk. 

Hunk hasn’t let go of her hand, smiling as he starts to walk in up to his shins. “I’ll keep you from floating away, promise.” 

Allura only needs a few moments to get used to the water, though. It’s not too long before all four Paladins are roped into a water battle. As soon as Hunk finds his bearings, he dunks Lance beneath the surface, fueled on by Pidge’s cheers. 

Shiro watches them all from the ledge, leaning back on his hands and laughing, amused at their antics. He swings his feet through the empty air. 

The battle below is hardly fair. It seems like the three have ganged up on Lance. Shiro’s sure he’ll hear Lance’s dramatic retelling of the battle around the campfire later. 

Shiro doesn’t startle when Keith sits down beside him— he’s always aware of where Keith is in relation to him— but Keith coming so close means Shiro loses track of the water battle entirely. Keith is a burning sun beside him, capturing all attention. 

Shiro turns his head towards Keith, smiling. “Not joining them?” 

“Need sunscreen first,” Keith says. He reads the bottle in his hand, turning it over. “It recommends waiting half an hour after applying before sun exposure.” 

Shiro laughs at his serious expression. “Your hat should keep you safe in the meantime.”

It has a huge brim, shadowing Keith’s face in its entirety. Keith shrugs. 

“Better safe than sorry, maybe?” he asks. 

It’s kind of cute to see him so concerned, really. Shiro watches Keith slick his hands up with sunscreen and work it into his skin, starting at the tops of his feet and working his way up his shins. He slathers every exposed inch of skin in sunscreen, his mouth playing at a smile. He’s so steady and focused in his work, but that’s always been Keith’s way. 

Shiro wonders if Keith applied sunscreen half an hour before heading out into the desert with Shiro, racing hoverbikes. He doesn’t ever remember smelling the unique scent of sunscreen back then, but it’s so long ago now it might just be that Shiro never thought to pay attention. 

Shiro watches Keith and the methodical way he moves, the drag of his fingers over his leg hair, how it all smooths out when he drags his hand back down, rubbing the lotion in. He even moves his hand up a few inches beneath his swim trunks, just in case. He does his arms next and it’s just as hypnotizing, the way he remembers to get the tops of his hands in addition to his arms, rubbing up and down, bunching up and then smoothing out his arm hair. 

“You’re spacing out,” Keith says. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Shiro says, looking up at Keith’s face. He sees his own reflection in Keith’s sunglasses. He smiles. “Just thinking I should have brought my own hat, too. The glare’s really bright off the water.” 

Keith wordlessly removes his hat and places it on Shiro’s head. Shiro wants to protest, but he knows that there’s never any point in fighting with Keith. Keith always wins when it comes to making Shiro comfortable. So he smiles instead and murmurs a quiet thanks, watching Keith prop his sunglasses up on the top of his head so he can rub lotion on his face and down his neck. 

Shiro adjusts the hat so it shadows his face and ears comfortably. 

Keith takes his shirt off next and Shiro bites his tongue, watching as Keith works sunscreen over his chest, stomach, and along his sides. He’s relentless, dipping his fingers beneath his trunks’ waistband, covering the skin there, too. Just in case. 

Keith looks up at him when he’s done. “Can you get my back for me?”

Shiro should have expected that. He nods, taking the bottle as Keith turns around, moving his hair off the back of his neck so that it falls forward instead. 

They don’t really talk while the others shriek down in the water below, kicking around and floating along the water. Lance does a few somersaults underwater and even manages a handstand, his feet kicking up in the air until Allura shoves him back down with a bark of amused laughter from Pidge. 

Shiro doesn’t mind the silence between him and Keith. Their silences never feel uncomfortable. Shiro takes a deep breath, reminding himself to be mindful: he makes himself aware of the breath in his lungs, the feeling of sunscreen on his fingertips as he smears it over Keith’s shoulders, the glide of his hands over Keith’s skin, the touch of Keith’s body, the ridges of his scars raised up on his skin, little markers and reminders of the battles they’ve left behind. Shiro lets himself go meditative with it, the same way he watched Keith apply it himself. The fascination isn’t sexual, even if of course it’s Keith and Shiro loves to look at him, but more an awareness: the places where his body ends and Keith’s begins.

He glides his hands over Keith’s shoulders, working his way down, fingertips tracing Keith’s spine. Keith leans back into the touch and Shiro’s hands linger, even once he’s finished. Keith glances at him over his shoulder, sunglasses back on and slipping down the tip of his nose, and he smiles. 

“Thanks, Shiro.” 

“Least I can do for the hat,” Shiro says, rubbing his hands over his legs to smear away the leftover greasy feeling of the sunscreen. 

“Are you going to swim?” Keith asks. 

“I’m not sure.” 

Keith just hums, sitting back next to Shiro and looking out at the water as Shiro applies sunscreen on himself, too. He’s not as thorough as Keith, and he doesn’t remove his shirt, but he feels Keith’s eyes on him anyway, alternating between watching their friends and watching Shiro. 

Shiro remembers a time, long before Kerberos, when he never minded having eyes on him. He didn’t seek the spotlight, but he accepted it when he rose in the ranks at the Garrison. He was used to being the gold standard. He was used to having eyes on him. He was used to the expectation, the judgement, the revelry. He thrived on it. 

Being the Champion changed that, for a while. It always felt too exposed, to be alone in an arena, covered in blood, aliens chanting not his name but a title hoisted upon him. It’d been terrified, then, to be seen. Or, not seen, but observed. To be ogled like an animal. He went back to his cage at night feeling like an animal. He went back to his cage wondering if that was just what he was now. 

It still licks through his veins sometimes, the surety that he is nothing more than cruelty, animalistic and savage. It was forced upon him and yet he still wonders if that’s who he always was. 

He's used to being the leader. Used to eyes turning to him in times of crisis. If not with Voltron, then with the Atlas. _A natural leader,_ some would call him, but Shiro’s not sure that’s true. 

Keith’s eyes on him has never felt like a burden. When he looks up and finds Keith there, that’s always a gift. It’s always comforting to think that Keith sees him and doesn’t hate him for it. He’s talked to his therapist about Keith a few times. Keith is set aside from all else. 

Half an hour must pass because eventually Keith stands and sets his sunglasses down on the pile he’s made of his sandals and shirt. He looks at Shiro again and asks, “You want to come?”

“Maybe in a couple minutes,” Shiro says. He flattens out on the rock, arms out. “I feel like hanging out in this sunbeam.” 

Keith snorts. “Cat.” 

Shiro grins at Keith and catches him around the ankle, squeezing once before letting go. “Go have fun.” 

Shiro doesn’t stop grinning even after Keith turns and hops off the rock and into the water, cannonballing so that he splashes the others. Shiro hears their hoots and hollers of surprise at Keith’s sudden entrance. 

He sits up again after a few minutes, adjusting Keith’s sunhat. He watches his friends as they carry on in the water, kicking and swimming around, having fun. It’s a nice sight, and a reassuring sight— that, despite all the hardships they’ve all faced, they can still find joy in the stupid things. They deserve that. 

From up here, Shiro can spot a bloom of red at the back of Pidge’s neck where she missed sunscreen, and he’s sure she’ll hate it later on, but Hunk packed aloe vera, so that should hopefully help. Keith’s hair is sticking straight up from how quickly he wicked it away from his face after resurfacing. Allura is floating on her back, looking perfectly serene as her hair drifting around her like a fluffy cloud. 

Shiro’s always felt a little separate from all of them. The thought occurs to him as he watches them, sitting apart from them. Not just because of his age, or his experience, but for his own walls. He always holds others separate from him. If he isn’t vulnerable, then he’ll never get hurt after all. He knows he’s held himself apart. 

It’s part of his homework for this weekend, after all. It’s been on his mind. 

Keith’s the only one who’s ever really managed to work his way past Shiro’s walls. For all that people think that Keith is standoffish and a lone wolf, Shiro’s always privately thought that Keith was easy to know. He wears his heart on his sleeve. It’s Shiro, with his friendly smiles and encouragement of others, never speaking on himself, who never lets his walls down. 

There are very few people who know _Shiro_ , he thinks. 

As if sensing his thoughts, Allura opens her eyes and spots him up on the rocks. “Shiro!” she calls. “Join us!”

The others quickly join in, calling out to Shiro. Hunk waves his arms, like there’s any possibility Shiro might not see them and it’s up to him to grab his attention, and Lance leads up a chant of Shiro’s name. Keith just grins up at him, wading in place. He’s not as graceful in the water as he is on land, Shiro thinks, and remembers a time back at the Garrison when Keith admitted he only ever learned how to swim in about ninth grade. 

The Paladins call to him and Shiro laughs. They only grow louder when Shiro stands up, kicking off his sandals towards Keith’s pile of clothes. 

He feels the flattened rock beneath his feet, warm and earthbound. He takes off Keith’s sun hat and sets it by their things. He hesitates when his fingers wrap around his shirt, and with a deep breath, he tugs it off over his head. He feels the heat of the sun on his back, the weight of the fabric in his hands.

He looks down at his friends— all of them, alive and happy, despite it all. All of them, doing the best they can. All of them, calling out for him to join them. 

Shiro backs up and goes running off the rock, splashing down into the water below. He lets himself feel that, too, that suspenseful moment when the water just holds him, when he hears nothing by the rush of water. He holds his breath. 

He hangs, suspended, and then floats back up to the surface, returning. 

-

“What if I cancel it?” Shiro asks Keith the day before his first scheduled therapy appointment. He says the words and then holds his breath. 

The others have gotten themselves therapists, even Keith, but Shiro’s been waffling on it since he set up that first appointment. It isn’t quite shame that Shiro feels and he knows it’s not a matter of a stigma that _he_ should need therapy. It’s not that. 

It's still terrifying. 

Keith looks at him, frowning. “Okay.” 

He says the word so easily that Shiro’s a little startled. He waits a beat, waiting to see if Keith will say something else. But he doesn’t. He just looks at Shiro calmly, expression thoughtful.

Shiro feels the panic swirl inside him. He stutters out a wobbly, “It’s just— there’s so much wrong with me, do I really want to reexperience everything I’ve been through? Do I really want to talk about, investigate, and relive all the most painful moments that have ever happened to me? Why would I want to— that’s a big ask.” 

“I know,” Keith says. He reaches out and holds Shiro’s shoulder, the touch gentle. There’s no judgement in his eyes or his voice when he says, “It’s understandable why you wouldn’t want that— all of us are dragging our feet on it.” 

Shiro feels like he’s about to quake apart. It’s only Keith’s hand on his shoulder that keeps him from doing so.

Keith nods, and smiles, and then says, “But.” 

“But?”

Keith squeezes his shoulder. “But, I think you want to go. Deep down. I think you know it’ll be worth it for you.” He smiles. “If you really didn’t want it, you’d have just cancelled and told me later that you had.” 

Shiro breathes out in a sharp rush. He lifts his hand, curling around Keith’s wrist, and holds tight. It’s centering, resounding, perfect to be so close to Keith. To be so understood. Keith is a steady, unifying force— always here, always supporting Shiro. He probably has no idea everything he’s done for Shiro. 

And Keith’s right. Shiro goes to his appointment. 

-

The Paladins swim until the sun starts to set. They’re far enough away from any cities that the darkened eastern sky dots itself with stars even while the sun is still hanging over the treeline in the west. 

The water’s chilled enough that most of them have climbed out of the water and are sunning themselves out on the rock, toweled off and sun-drying in the last dredges of the day. Keith lies beside Shiro, dropping his hat over Shiro’s eyes to shield him from the rays. Pidge pokes at the red spots on her body that have burned with a predictable frown. Hunk helps braid Allura’s hair so it’ll dry even wavier. 

“We should head back soon,” Hunk says. “We gotta build up the fire while it’s still light out, and boil some of that water.” 

“I need aloe,” Pidge grumbles, standing and brushing little pebbles off her swim trunks. 

They bundle up all their stuff and trudge back towards the campsite. It’s just as they left it, and Hunk starts the finishing touches on the dinner he prepared ahead of time. Shiro volunteers to start the fire with Allura, helping hold her braided hair back from the flames as they work. 

“Like this,” he says, showing her how to set up a tee of kindling around a larger log. “The trick is to create air pockets so the fire will grow and not get smothered.” 

“Fascinating,” Allura says and does, indeed, look fascinated as Shiro uses a lighter to catch stray bits of paper aflame, wedging them between the little twigs. The twigs ignite and Shiro blows gently, coaxing the fire to life. 

Allura mimics him, watching as Shiro adds steadily larger kindling until the fire blooms to life and catches on the larger log. 

“There, and then we save the kindling for the next fire,” Shiro says. “Once it gets going, you just need to add the larger logs. Once if it gets hot enough, you can even set out wood that’s not fully dry yet.” 

Allura fills the pot with river water at Shiro’s instructions and they sit together, waiting for it to boil as the camp bustles around them. Lance loops up a clothesline between two trees and hangs their towels and swimsuits out to dry. Keith applies aloe to Pidge’s shoulders. Hunk works on dinner, working at the lone picnic bench supplied by the campsite. 

Allura looks gentle in the dying light of the evening, her smile serene as she looks into the fire, arms clasped around her bent legs. She’s wearing a loose dress that falls to her ankles, and he’s sure once she uncoils her braid, her hair will be even fluffier than usual. 

They sit quietly, watching the fire and the water in the pot. 

“Humans have a phrase… A watched pot never boils,” he explains when Allura looks to him.

“Is it true?” Allura asks. “Should I look away from it?” 

“No, it just— it means that if you’re hovering over something, it’ll feel like it takes even longer to happen.” 

“Humans are sweet,” Allura says and they fall into silence, her lips quirked into an endeared smile. 

Shiro takes a breath and lets it back out again. He feels Allura shift, glancing over at him. He didn’t exactly have anything more to say, but now that Allura is looking at him, he wonders if he should say something.

“You know,” he finds himself saying, “I never used to hate silence.” 

He holds his breath, his heart pounding. It could be an innocuous statement for many, but for him, it’s an admittance. It’s a truth he rarely acknowledges. He hates it. He hates it so much since the astral plane, after countless months of nothing but silence. 

Allura slowly loops her arm with his and leans against him, cheek cushioned on his shoulder. “Yes,” she says. “It’s understandable.” 

They watch the bubbles start to collect on the edges of the water against the pot’s walls. 

“It’s hard,” Shiro says, “ever since— everything.” 

It sounds pathetic to his own ears, perfectly unnatural. If he were saying it to Keith, even then it’d feel too gritted out of him. If he can’t say it to Keith, who could he say it to? Even with Keith, he’d be afraid of making him feel guilty, of seeing the haunted look in Keith’s eyes as Shiro describes it. Shiro knows Keith still blames himself for everything that’s happened to Shiro, as if it could ever be his responsibility.

It was no one’s fault. Not even Shiro’s. It wasn’t his fault. He knows that, logically, even if often his heart refuses to accept it. 

He’s said it now. And Allura is listening. 

“There was a time,” Allura says, squeezing his arm, “After… we had to erase the memories of my father from the Castle. I hated to be left on my own. It was the first time I ever felt… truly alone.” 

She speaks the words softly, her expression gentle, but it feels like a punch to Shiro’s gut. Not just for the words themselves, but for the ease in which she offers the words. Shiro knows it was anything but easy. 

He leans his head on hers, pressing his cheek to the crown of her head. “Yeah.” 

“Yes,” Allura says, voice low. 

They go quiet again, pausing as the water starts to boil. Shiro lets it go for a few minutes to make sure it’s boiling away anything left in the water, then uses his shirt to transfer it off the flame. He sets it on the ground to cool. 

“… How are you?” Shiro asks and cringes. “I mean, in general.” 

He’s not sure how to phrase the question. _How are you adjusting to living on a foreign planet? How are you feeling seeing Earth rebuild thanks to your efforts, while you’ve lost your home?_ Nothing feels adequate, and it hardly feels the time to ask it, here, when he’s had months and months to do that. 

Allura nods, her hand sliding down Shiro’s arm to take his hand. She cups his hand with both of hers, encasing it easily. It’s a soothing touch, gentle and friendly. She’s quiet for a long moment, not quite gathering her thoughts but sitting in that silence. 

“I’m okay,” she says after a moment. “In no small part thanks to all of you. Without the Paladins and without Coran… I’m not sure.” She squeezes his hand and turns her head to smile at him, her eyes bright. “But I’m here and I’m grateful for that.” 

Shiro thinks of his earlier thought down at the lake, similar to that— they’re here. They’re together and they’re alive. They made it. 

He squeezes her hand and nods his head. 

“I was afraid that the similarities of Earth to Altea would bring me only pain,” Allura admits. “But I’ve found it’s those little things that bring me joy.” She looks up, watching the Paladins meander around the campsite, her voice low enough that only Shiro will hear it. 

Shiro nods, following Allura’s gaze to the other side of the campsite, where Keith’s lecturing Pidge on proper sunscreen application. Pidge rolls her eyes, but the fact that she’s still listening means she isn’t totally flippant, despite her posture. 

Shiro feels his expression soften, watching Keith tick off the several good reasons why she should be more mindful. He’s actually counting off with his fingers. It’s adorable. A flood of warmth rushes through Shiro. He’s sure it must show on his face. 

“We all deserve joy,” Allura says, tone knowing. 

“Yeah,” Shiro says. He’s always thought that for the others. It’s been harder to learn to extend that same kindness to himself. 

Sometimes he believes it. Other days, he still doesn’t. But it’s a step. It’s still progress. 

They watch their friends together until Hunk finishes prepping their dinner and announces it’s time to eat. Allura pats Shiro’s hand one last time and then slowly untangles herself from him, standing and dusting off her dress. She offers her hand to Shiro and hauls him onto his feet effortlessly. 

Shiro thinks of all the other things he wants to say, all the different things he could say to reassure her, to do something. But Allura’s smile is kind and understanding, Shiro thinks as they head over towards the food together. He knows that’s always been true of Allura: she knows how to listen, but it’s okay if he doesn’t have anything to say. 

It's a step. 

-

Dr. Cosmia Santiago’s office is a small and unassuming office. It’s a new building in town, rebuilt in the wake of the Galra invasion. There’s a bank of windows high on the wall, letting the light in but giving the doctor and her clients privacy. The couch is comfortable and there’s a peace lily in a pot on the side-table next to boxes of tissues. Dr. Santiago asks him if he’d like tea before they start. She has an assortment of herbal teas with peaceful names like Calming Energy and Tranquil Lavender. He goes for the blend that doesn’t have chamomile in it. 

“I hate how it tastes,” he admits.

“Truthfully, so do I,” she says with a laugh and pours the water. 

Before arriving, she’d forwarded a questionnaire for him to fill out. She scrolls through it on the PADD. She has an excellent poker face; Shiro can’t read her reaction to any of the things he’s outlined— his current coping mechanisms, his reasons for seeking therapy now, his goals, and so on. She nods at the last question— _True or False: I think therapy can help me._ Shiro had circled true and hoped it was, indeed, true. 

“Let’s start with discussing what you’d like to focus on,” she says as she sets the datapad down. “You mentioned in our initial phone interview that you were looking to process trauma associated with your PTSD.” She looks up at him, calm and professional. “What would you like to gain from our meetings?” 

Shiro laughs, a sharp and ugly sound. “Where do I even start?” 

His therapist doesn’t laugh at his joke, but he didn’t expect her to. Humor, he’s quickly learning, tends to not really work as a deflection in therapy. 

The joke aside, Shiro’s question is, in the end, perfectly earnest: 

_Where the fuck do I even start?_

-

“Time for s’mores!” Lance shouts once they finish with dinner. He practically whips his plate off into the darkened forest he’s so excited to grab the supplies. 

“No,” Keith says, “It’s time to wash dishes first.” 

He shoves the dirty plates and cutlery into Lance’s hands. Lance pouts. “Can’t it wait until _after_ s’mores? Don’t be a spoilsport.” 

“We should wash them before it gets too dark,” Hunk says, staring into the forest and looking vaguely haunted. Even after all that time in the literal dark of space, Hunk isn’t too keen on night. Shiro can’t exactly blame him, or anyone, for their fears— rational or irrational. 

Shiro stands up from the log he’s sitting on with Pidge and Allura. “I can clean up. You guys have marshmallows. They’re too sweet for me, anyway.” 

There’s a chorus of protests and Hunk insists on coming with him, hooking Lance along with them. Keith, Allura, and Pidge set out to find nearby firewood to last them through the night. Keith also solemnly informs Allura that they absolutely must find the pointiest sticks possible or else s’mores will be a total failure. Allura takes this task on with the utmost sincerity and intensity. 

Hunk clings to Lance as they follow the path down to the river, spooking at every snap of a twig beneath their own feet. Shiro carries the dishes and the biodegradable soap bottle, amused as Lance both eggs Hunk’s fears on while trying to assuage him. 

“Come on, big guy,” Lance says. “I’ll protect you. So will Shiro!” 

Hunk looks over his shoulder at Shiro and Shiro offers a smile, the lantern swinging between them and casting long shadows off the trunks of the trees. “Don’t worry,” Shiro says, joking, “if a bear shows up to eat us, I’ll dive in front of you both.” 

“Stop, that doesn’t help!” Hunk cries, clinging harder to Lance, so hard that they nearly trip over some river rocks once they reach the bank. 

“Bears will avoid you, don’t worry,” Lance says, probably because he’s noticed that Hunk purposefully kneels between him and Shiro, unwilling to be the closest to the dark. “If you speak loud enough, they’ll hear you and not be surprised by you.”

“B- but mother bears…” Hunk says loudly— louder than necessary— glancing over his shoulder. 

Shiro holds out the soap and starts flicking one of the plates through the water, cleaning away the detritus of the dinner. 

“Hunk, geez,” Lance says. “We’ve literally faced worse things than bears. We’ll be fine.” 

Hunk still doesn’t look convinced, although cleaning the dishes gives him something to focus on. Hunk and Lance keep exchanging words, leaving Shiro to his silence. He listens to them idly, but doesn’t jump in, unsure what else to say. Eventually, it’s clear that Lance’s teasing has managed to calm Hunk down, at least a little, and their exchanges become more like banter than true fear. 

Shiro apparently is quiet for too long, because Hunk pauses mid-joke and glances over at him, looking unsure.

“Sorry,” Shiro says. “Just— thinking you guys are funny.” 

Hunk blinks in surprise. “Oh— really?” 

“Sure,” Shiro says with a shrug, scrubbing at the last of the plates and then washing away the soap. The water from the river sweeps it away. “Just… I’m glad you two can still laugh a lot with each other, that’s all.” He laughs, self-conscious. “Is that weird to say?” 

“As long as we’re not being annoying…”

“No,” Shiro says. “Of course not. How could you?” 

Lance is boisterous, energetic, and maybe can get on people’s nerves— but like this, laughing and teasing Hunk by the riverside, it’s a pleasant sight. It’s reassuring, really: there’s still normalcy in the world. Shiro isn’t quite sure what normal is anymore, whether it exists, but there’s something kind in seeing Hunk and Lance act like the kids they still are, that they should still be. 

He thinks of them playing in the water with Pidge, too, watching them up from above. There’s strength in that, too, that despite all the hardships they’ve been through, that despite all they’ve faced, there’s still plenty in the world that can make them happy. 

Or, how Allura put it, by the fire— that there is still joy in the world. 

“Yeah, Hunk, don’t worry,” Lance says. “If anything, Shiro just thinks we’re totally uncool. I mean, who’s cooler than him?”

Shiro blushes. “I don’t—” 

Hunk also blushes. “Uh—” 

“Well, what about you, Shiro?” Lance says. “What would you do if we suddenly saw a bear?” 

“Stay calm,” Shiro says. 

“See? The cool and responsible answer,” Lance says with a sage nod. It makes Shiro laugh, considering before they included him in the conversation, Lance was discussing practicing wrestling with a bear if he found one, as if it wasn’t more likely that Hunk and Lance would take off shrieking into the woods. 

“Come on,” Shiro says, still laughing. “Let’s go back and see if the others have finished finding sticks.” 

“Keith’s with them,” Lance says with a roll of his eyes. “You know he’s whittled them all down to spears by this point.”

Shiro chuckles. Lance isn’t wrong. 

When they get back to camp, the others are indeed circled around the fire, keeping it going, and Keith has whittled the sticks they found to sharpened points for better marshmallow-spearing. It makes the three of them laugh when they spot it and Keith frowns at them in confusion. 

Shiro helps Hunk dry off the dishes and pack away the rest of the food, stringing up most of it to hang in the trees away from camp. 

“Hey, Shiro?” Hunk asks as they’re working, staring up at the trees as he loops the rope around the trunk, securing it in place.

“What’s up, Hunk?”

“You really don’t think I’m dumb for being afraid of bears?” Hunk says. 

“I think it’d be stupider to _not_ be concerned about bears, honestly,” Shiro says and that does make Hunk chuckle. 

Shiro smiles at him, patting him on the shoulder as they tie up another bear-proof canister of food. 

“I mean, it’s like Lance said… I know we’ve faced worse,” Hunk says as he strings up the rope, hoisting the canister of food up into the air. “I just… Get nervous.” 

Shiro nods. He knows that anxiety is something that Hunk’s working on with his own therapist, and that he does well with the support of his friends and family. 

“Hunk,” Shiro says. “You’re one of the bravest people I know.” He smiles, tilting his head. “It’s okay to hate bears.” 

Hunk blushes and ducks his head as he ties up the rope, but not before Shiro catches his relieved smile. 

Shiro pauses, letting the words sink in, the two of them working together. The words are true and it’s something Shiro feels about all the Paladins. All of them are brave, in their own way, whether intrinsic within them or forced upon them due to the situation. But when it mattered, when it really mattered, Hunk never backed down. 

He knows Hunk well enough that to shower him in compliments would just make him uncomfortable, so Shiro considers, unsure if he should say anything more, and settles for, “I’m afraid of spiders.”

“Uh— what?” Hunk asks. 

“It’s irrational,” Shiro says as he finishes tying off the last of the ropes, turning to Hunk with a shrug. “But any time I see them, I get all freaked out. At the Garrison, I used to force my roommate or— or Adam, my ex, to get rid of them for me.” He cringes. “But I hated them getting killed, so I wanted them gone, but humanely, you know? So Adam would always humor me and put them in a cup and take them outside for me.” 

Shiro’s not sure if he’s ever admitted that out loud. He’s certainly never talked about Adam in front of the Paladins. 

Hunk stares at him, mouth open. It’s kind of a relief when Hunk laughs in his face. 

“Sorry,” Hunk says, slapping a hand over his mouth. 

“No, go ahead and laugh,” Shiro says. “It’s irrational, like I said.” He laughs. “Anyway. I know this forest is crawling with them and every time I see a little movement, I’m all worried it’s a spider.” 

“I promise to keep a cup near me and get rid of them for you,” Hunk says, clearly amused but being polite about it. 

Instead of feeling embarrassed about it, Shiro just feels pleased. He pats Hunk on the back as they make their way back towards the campfire where the others are circled up and waiting for them. 

-

Shiro works with Dr. Santiago— she says that Shiro can call her Cosmia, if he wants, but Shiro has always been respectful and polite, and it feels too vulnerable to call her that, so she’s always Dr. Santiago— and together they establish a schedule and a treatment plan for what he wants out of therapy. 

The first few meetings are just set-up and foundational. But even that is fatiguing for Shiro. Dr. Santiago asks him what he wants to work on, where he wants to start, and what he wants to focus on, and the fact that it’s all supposed to be over in fifteen sessions, plus homework, is shocking and overwhelming. 

It’s terrifying. The closer Shiro looks, the more there is to pick apart. Too much. It’s too much at once to even try to process everything he’s been through. When he tries, he feels like he’s about to have a panic attack. 

“We want to do more than traditional talk therapy,” she says. “It’s not effective if we don’t treat the underlying problems. I’m not just your pressure relief valve.” She taps her fingers against her knee, leaning forward. “My job is to help you improve your symptoms, yes, but also teach you the skills you’ll need to deal with it on your own.”

It all makes sense in theory— changing the thought patterns that disturb his life, talking through trauma or concentrating on where those fears come from— but it feels strangely terrestrial after all he’s been through. He’s not sure how to talk about his experiences, not with a human who’s never been to space, although now, he supposes, all humans have an understanding of alien life in its most destructive form. 

Everyone, the entire world, has trauma after the Galra invasion. The thought occurs to Shiro one night before his appointment, a mundane moment as he’s brushing his teeth and it nearly sends him into a panic. 

He tells Dr. Santiago about it the next morning and she nods in sympathy. It occurs to Shiro, looking at her, that she must be in therapy, too. Therapists must have therapists. It’s a weird thought.

“It’s just so much,” Shiro admits after she describes the first steps to CPT. 

“We can try it,” Dr. Santiago says. “And if that doesn’t work, we can try something else. There’s no ‘correct’ way to do things. We can follow what works for you. If we decide that Prolonged Exposure might work better, or EMDR, then that’s what we’ll do.” 

“Okay,” Shiro says, trying to breathe. 

“So, let’s take it one step at a time,” Dr. Santiago says. “Our task is to find the source and to treat that. Everything else will fall into place after that.”

It doesn’t make it better, it doesn’t fix the problem, but it helps. 

It helps. 

-

Shiro ends up roasting marshmallows, although he only eats one s’more before he shoves the marshmallows he roasts off onto Pidge, who stacks four between slabs of chocolate and graham cracker and devours them like she’s starving. 

Hunk and Lance help Allura learn the art of the s’more, with two varying approaches. Lance is a _burn the marshmallow to a crisp, peel away for the gooey center_ type of roaster, while Hunk favors the _find the perfect furnace and slowly rotate and toast the marshmallow a golden brown_. 

Keith has the most lackadaisical approach, holding his marshmallow away from the embers where the fire is hottest and instead letting the fire lick at it as he holds it up high over the campfire, well out of the way of everyone else. Shiro taps his stick against Keith’s, teasing, but Keith just gives him an amused look and doesn’t bother to defend himself. 

Pidge starts whining halfway through when they start getting low on chocolate. 

“What did you expect with your mountain s’mores?” Hunk teases. 

Keith looks pretty in the firelight, Shiro thinks, watching the way the fire reflects in his eyes and dances off the dark of his hair. He gives a jaw-cracking yawn at one point, seemingly unconcerned with the antics around him. He’s a calm, centering force, like the eye of a storm. 

He catches Shiro staring eventually, turning his head and smiling at him in questioning bemusement. Shiro just shrugs. He doesn’t have anything to say— he just likes looking at Keith, likes seeing him so in his element, so calm, relaxed, and _happy._ Keith deserves that. 

Keith pulls his marshmallow away from the fire. It’s barely roasted, just a little gold on one edge, maybe. He doesn’t seem concerned and doesn’t even bother making a s’more. He just pops the marshmallow, still on the stick, into his mouth and tugs it off with his teeth, chewing.

It makes Shiro laugh, especially when Lance and Pidge squawk in outrage at Keith’s complete lack of finesse. Keith isn’t really paying them much mind, of course, his eyes focused on Shiro. 

“Having fun?” Keith asks Shiro around a mouthful of marshmallow. 

Shiro shrugs, and scoots down the log so that he’s sitting side by side with Keith, their shoulders pressed together. “You have marshmallow on your cheek.” 

Keith wipes it away and then licks his fingers. He’s sure that would cause further outrage from the other Paladins, if they were paying attention. Allura’s taken their attention now with her innovative s’mores combo of marshmallow, graham cracker, and more marshmallow. It’s making for a sticky mess and some of the marshmallow is stuck in her hair now. 

Shiro, of course, has eyes only for Keith. That much isn’t new, though. 

“You seem like you are, at least,” Keith says. 

“What?”

“Having fun.” 

Shiro tilts his head, humming. He forgets, sometimes, that for all the ways in which he watches Keith, Keith is doing the exact same with Shiro. 

“You seem relaxed,” Keith says. “Which I guess is the point of vacation.” 

Shiro chuckles and Keith smiles, shrugging. Keith’s turned to face Shiro properly, angling away from the fire, and it leaves their knees pressing together. Keith is a furnace all his own, smoldering and warm where he sits beside Shiro, radiating heat. Even if Shiro didn’t have a sweater on, he’d have no fear of staying warm with Keith beside him. 

The night is quiet around them, save for the forest— the rustle of the wind through the leaves, night crickets and owls calling in the distance. If Shiro listens closely, above the crackling sound of the fire and his friends’ laughter, he can hear the river as it bends through the earth. 

Shiro pulls his marshmallow from the fire, poking at it with his finger to test its crispiness. He’s not sure if he wants to eat this one or just give it to Pidge. 

“I guess I’m relaxed,” Shiro says, finally. He smiles. “I like camping.” 

“Me too,” Keith says. He shrugs. “I thought I’d get burnt out on it after the whale.” 

“Guess this is a bit different.” 

Keith laughs, eyes glittering. “Better food, at least.” He smiles at Shiro, his gaze soft. “The company’s good, too.” 

“I’m telling the wolf you don’t think he and your mom are good company.” 

Keith shoves at him playfully, barking a laugh. “You know what I meant.” 

“I know,” Shiro says, catching Keith’s hand before he can draw it away and squeezing it. “I’m glad you’re here, too, Keith.” 

-

Three weeks into therapy, and Shiro doubts they’ll be finished in three months. 

Shiro never really let himself think about any of this before, never let himself put it into words. To speak it made it real. The first time he looks in the mirror and says it aloud, it, ridiculously, makes him want to cry. He forces the tears back and feels ashamed to do so— knows his therapist would, likely, encourage him to let it out.

He can’t. If he starts crying, he’ll never stop. Everything will fester inside him and pour out, ugly and vitriolic. 

_I have PTSD._ Even saying as much is terrifying, even if it is not new. He’s lived with the anxiety, with the insomnia, with the flashbacks, with the painful, unpleasant emotions for so long. He's relived event after event, lost memories only to regain them, and woken up screaming, ready to fight an enemy that no longer exists. 

He's died. He’s died and he’s come back. He’s killed, not just enemies, but for survival. 

_Moral injury,_ is a suggested diagnosis in addition to the PTSD. His therapist explains the difference, but all Shiro feels is brittle and broken. 

There are things beyond his control. He knows this. But the thoughts weigh him down, both the memories he remembers and the strange absence where memories should be. He wants to move forward, he knows this, and his therapist says that’s a good first step: that he can’t be helped if he isn’t willing to be helped. 

It's terrifying, to think that he could learn to accept and understand what’s happened to him and what he’s done. 

_It wasn’t your fault,_ his therapist says, just as so many others before her have said. And Shiro wants to believe it. He wants to. He just can’t. 

-

Shiro crawls into bed that night after they douse the fire and call out goodnights to each other. The tents are thin, of course, so he can hear Lance and Hunk murmuring to each other even across the camp. 

He settles into his sleeping bag beside Keith’s. Keith hums a little, stretched out and eyes closed, although he looks far from sleeping. 

Shiro watches him for a moment, trying to mimic his relaxation. “Sorry if I have a nightmare,” he says quietly. “You can just poke me awake.” 

Keith opens one eye to peer at him. Shiro loves Keith’s eyes in the dark, how sometimes they illuminate like a cat’s might. It’s a Galra thing, Shiro thinks, or maybe a half-Galra thing. It’s almost soothing, like a nightlight. He wonders how well Keith can see him in the dark, if it’s just like being in the light of day. He wonders if Keith can see him blushing. 

“It’s okay,” Keith says. “I get them, too. Sometimes.” 

They all do. Shiro’s heard all of the Paladins wake up in the night, shouting out to or for someone who isn’t there. 

Shiro’s can get violent, though. He knows the breathing exercises he’s been practicing with Dr. Santiago and he hopes that if it comes to it, that will help. The tent is a closed, confined space, but Keith is a steady presence next to him and that helps. 

“Should I wake you up if you have one?” Shiro asks.

“If I disturb you,” Keith says. “I usually wake up myself and then fall back asleep, if I can.” 

Shiro nods. He shifts onto his side, looking at Keith. Keith rolls onto his side to face him. They lie there, side by side, using their sweaters as pillows, eyes meeting. Shiro can’t see Keith as well in the dark, but the glow of his eyes draws him home. 

“I’ll be here when you wake up,” Shiro says and Keith closes his eyes, shivering. 

“Thanks,” Keith says in a quiet voice. He smiles, a wobbly, gentle thing in the dark. “I’ll also be here. Always.” 

There’s a strange weight to the words. It makes Shiro’s heart thud. He blushes and nods and tries to relax further. Sleeping bags can feel constricting, too. He likes to spread out when he sleeps, but the tent, sleeping bag, and Keith’s presence forces him to stay in a solid line. 

“Thanks, Keith,” Shiro whispers and closes his eyes, trying to sleep. 

-

CPT helps, Shiro knows. But it’s torture. 

Shiro struggles with the homework and with the sessions both. Dr. Santiago warned that things would be hard, but that he shouldn’t _hate_ it. If he dreads it a little, that’s understandable, because what he’s doing is hard. But he needs to want it. 

And Shiro knows it’s important. He does his best. But it’s hard. 

For CPT, he’s meant to describe, in detail, the traumatic event. He’s supposed to take his time with it, to include as many details as he can. He’ll come to his session and read the words aloud, recorded, so that he can work through it again and again. 

But Shiro struggles to write down everything he’s supposed to, struggles to describe all the things he remembers. All the things he doesn’t remember. 

He spends hours on a simple line. It’s hard to focus on something he’s been avoiding thinking about, and when he opens those flood gates, all he can think of are all the ways he failed, all the ways he’s a monster, all the ways he’s broken, all the ways he deserves this—

He knows it’s not true. Logically, he knows. But emotions, he’s found, are very rarely logical. 

When he returns to his sessions, half the time he hasn’t even finished the task, his hands trembling as he hands over the form. He couldn’t even begin to cover every little thing he’s supposed to. Remembering all that’s happened to him is _too much_ , and trying to make sense of it, trying to express it in written language, feels insurmountable. 

He tries not to be discouraged when Dr. Santiago suggests they extend the sessions, so they’ll have time to cover everything. She suggests six months total, and Shiro nods because he knows it’s necessary— but it feels like a failure. 

“We all go at our own pace,” she says and Shiro knows that’s true, knows he’d say that for anyone else. But it’s hard to apply it to himself. 

Each session, Shiro unfolds the pages and pages he’s written— hand-written or printed out, but Dr. Santiago discourages the use of a datapad during the sessions, preferring he hold something tangible in his hands. His therapist hits the recording button on the machine between them, and Shiro begins to read, struggling his way through it. 

The first time, it’s quick— relatively speaking— only about five minutes before he finishes describing his abduction on Kerberos. 

But then she asks him to describe it again, in deeper detail. The second time is a bigger struggle. 

That’s how it goes. Shiro reads through his description, and then she asks him to do it again, in deeper detail. Then again, in deeper detail still. 

“Are you alright?” she asks him after each time. She asks him for a scale, one to ten, on how he’s feeling. She asks if he wants to continue. 

Shiro nods his head every time. It is torture, but Shiro has faced worse torture. It is torture, but he knows it’ll be worth it. 

His hands shake not for fear, but for desire— he wants to be better. He wants to face it. He doesn’t want to run away anymore. 

He wants to be as strong as everyone thinks he is. 

“Again,” she says, not unkindly, and Shiro’s sweating, clenching his hands together, and trying not to sob. But he does it. Again and again, he does it. 

Shiro is tired of running away. 

“It _is_ distressing,” she says when Shiro admits to it in a quiet voice, needs to take a breather between readings to just catch his breath and chug down the lukewarm tea she brewed for him. “Of course it is. It’s okay to take time.” 

That’s how it goes, session after session. For months. 

Shiro is adaptable. He’s always been adaptable. That is, in the end, the point of CPT. Eventually, he habituates to the distress. He understands and accepts the distress. He faces the fear. 

It’s hard to pinpoint the worst experience, the worst memory, the worst recounting. Each one feels like a punch to the gut. The abduction on Kerberos. The arena. The experiments and torture. The fighting. Dying. Being dead. Watching a clone of himself, whose memories he remembers, walk around as if nothing had happened. Fighting an endless war, watching so many friends and allies die or almost die. Being mind-controlled. Fighting Keith. Nearly killing Keith, nearly leading Keith to his death. Returning home to an invaded planet, unable to do anything. Leaving home again and fighting an endless battle. All those near misses and almost fatal mistakes. 

It's describing his fight with Keith that makes him, finally, break down into tears. It’s the first time he’s cried in front of someone in a very long time and it takes him by surprise. His voice wobbles, then cracks, and then he’s bent over himself, unable to breathe and heaving through sobs that wrack his entire body. 

But Shiro is adaptable. Even in this, he gets better. He pushes through it. 

Afterwards, once he’s home with his recording, his homework to listen to it, to face it, to listen to his own process of emotions, he has to steel himself. 

_It’s about learning the tools to overcome the problems,_ he reminds himself as he slides his finger along the PADD’s interface, hitting replay. He listens, really listens, to the words he says, watches himself in the recording as he breaks through every detail of the fight. 

He feels it all in vivid detail. The strain of his muscles. The breathlessness in his lungs. The screaming in his mind as he watches himself fight Keith, both feeling that need to destroy, to kill, and also knowing it is wrong. He knows, intimately, what it feels like to want to kill someone, even against his own control. 

The feelings are not his. He is not cruel. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, has never wanted to cause violence or exist in violence. The feelings were forced on him. 

He remembers everything about the fight— the blood, the strain, the breathlessness, the way Keith looked bruised and exhausted, sprawled out on the platform beneath him and pleading to him. He knows the smell of singing flesh as his energy sword got too close. He remembers the way Keith looked at him, ready to die with him. He remembers how painfully willing Keith was to fall with him. 

He remembers the way Keith looked, staring up at Shiro and swearing his love. 

It takes several sessions before Shiro can admit to that detail. Even longer before he can admit to hearing those words, he knows exactly how he felt: shock, relief, joy, even in the midst of bloodthirst forced upon him. How his response was to try to make Keith _angry_ , to show that he was beyond saving. To save Keith, however he could. 

If Shiro were beyond saving, if Keith could believe that, then Keith wouldn’t hold back and could win. Could cut him down. Could be safe. 

If he proved to Keith that he wasn’t worth it, then Keith would be free.

Shiro sobs as he describes wanting to kill Keith, and he doesn’t pretend. He doesn’t run away from that reality. It’s true. It happened. He tried to kill Keith. He was mind-controlled to _want_ it. How desperately he wanted Keith to see him like that, too— bloodthirsty, destructive, violent, beyond saving. If he did, he could end it all. 

And of course Keith didn’t fall for it. Of course Keith only ever saw him as he was: trapped, but worth saving. Of course Keith never let go.

Of course Keith never gave up on him. 

-

Shiro wakes in the morning with his arms curled around Keith. Keith’s face is pressed up against his neck, his breath damp against his skin. It’s a pleasant weight to hold Keith in his arms. 

Shiro’s sure he woke up in the night. He’s sleeping better since therapy, in general, but he still wakes up in fits and starts. Sometimes, blissfully, he doesn’t remember it in the morning. He wonders if Keith woke up, too. 

“Keith,” he murmurs in Keith’s ear. 

Keith shifts, mumbling sleepily and nuzzling in closer. Shiro breathes in and out again, clinging. Keith smells like the woods around them, like pine and the lake water they swam in. It’s a pleasant smell, really, but that might just be because it’s Keith. Shiro’s not sure if he’d be as endeared if it was one of the other Paladins pressed up to him like this.

Shiro rubs Keith’s back, trying to rouse him slowly so as not to startle him. He can’t hear any low murmurs outside their tent, suggesting most of the other Paladins are still asleep. The sun has risen, the light coming in through the tent fabric, dappled with shadows from the trees around them. 

“Keith,” he says again, voice quiet, nose pressed into Keith’s hair. “Time to wake up.”

“Mm,” Keith agrees, lips pressed against the column of Shiro’s neck. Shiro fears the moment he becomes aware of himself and stiffens up before jerking back, but that moment never comes. Instead, slowly, Keith draws away from the hold and smiles up at Shiro, his eyes soft with sleep. “Sorry. Did I cling all night?” 

“I don’t know,” Shiro says, his arms still wrapped around him. “I think I did, too.” 

“Gotta stay warm somehow,” Keith says, more an idle statement than an excuse. He blushes, but otherwise doesn’t seem embarrassed. He smiles at Shiro, his expression shy. Shiro smiles back at him, helpless and in love. 

Keith sits up, the light tumbling in through the tent and framing him in a glow, his hair a mess and his face still slack with sleepiness. Shiro looks up at him and can’t stop smiling, feeling overwhelmed with it. 

“Come on,” Keith says. “Let’s make breakfast before the gremlins wake up.” 

Shiro nearly bursts out laughing, loud enough he’d surely wake everyone up, and lets Keith tug him up into a sitting position. They wriggle into their boots before exiting the tent, unzipping it slowly as they peek out into the morning. 

Nobody else is awake yet. Shiro and Keith are quiet as they creep through the camp, bringing down some of the food for breakfast. Shiro makes a pancake batter as Keith starts the fire and boils water for coffee. 

Shiro’s cut caffeine out of his diet to help with anxiety, digging around in his pack for a few herbal tea bags instead that he holds out to Keith to brew for him. They move in an easy silence— the kind of silence that makes Shiro know that, really, he isn’t as bothered by the quiet as he once was. They circle each other, anticipating what the other needs before they ever have to say it. 

Shiro watches Keith’s back as he plumps up the fire. He watches the delicate arch of his neck as he stoops down, the way his hair falls in his face until he sweeps it away, fisting it as he ducks down close to the fire and blows onto the flame until it bursts up into life. 

He imagines walking behind Keith and kissing each knob of his spine on the back of his neck. He imagines taking Keith’s hand and curling their fingers together, telling Keith in the early quiet that he loves him. 

He’s talked about that with his therapist, too— all the things that hold him back. The things his disorder has stopped him from pursuing. Shiro hates to blame something like PTSD on why he hasn’t pursued a relationship. He told Dr. Santiago during one session, jokingly, that he’s always been bad at relationships. 

Of course, he should have known better. She always makes him self-examine his statements, asking him why he feels that way. He’d spent the ninety-minute session talking about Adam, the lingering guilt for being selfish, as he sees it, and of leaving him behind. 

It'd gotten around to Keith. Shiro remembers Keith saying that he loves him, has seen that devotion in Keith since the very moment Shiro befriended him. He knew about Keith’s puppy crush at the Garrison and assumed it’d have faded in that year he was gone— only to be faced with it again, a few times, in the Castle of Lions. Their fight only solidified it, that somehow Keith could still feel that even when fighting an evil clone of his friend, and even two years separated from his friends. 

It was a marvel to Shiro, to think he could be worth loving at all for that long. 

Shiro, of course, loves Keith back. But he’s never actually told him as much. 

_Why not?_ Dr. Santiago asked, because of course she did.

Any number of reasons, Shiro thinks. All that he knows are, of course, illogical. But his emotions, love, has never been logical. That’s the point of it. He loves Keith for so many reasons, and he’d never describe it as a logical love, but an inevitable one: it was always going to be impossible for him to _not_ love Keith. Fierce, loyal, brilliant, passionate, kind, beautiful Keith. 

If he’s honest, Shiro has no idea how anyone can resist loving Keith. 

Shiro definitely spent at least thirty minutes of that ninety-minute session just outlining all of Keith’s strengths. Even then, he didn’t do him justice. 

He knows Dr. Santiago noticed he didn’t answer the actual question for why he hadn’t told Keith yet. He’s still uncurling that one from inside himself. 

Keith deserves the universe. He deserves more than a broken monster weighing him down. 

Shiro closes his eyes, pausing in stirring the pancake batter. _I’m not broken,_ he reminds himself. _I’m not a monster._

He breathes out. _I’m worthy._ He breathes in. _I’m doing the best I can._ He breathes out again. _I forgive myself for my mistakes because I know I’m doing the best I can._

Eventually, he’ll believe that, too. He hopes. 

Keith turns his head, eyebrow raised. He has the camping frying pan set on the fire, the butter heating up and waiting for Shiro’s batter. Shiro comes over with the spoon, setting down beside Keith. 

He allows himself the urge to touch Keith’s hair, brushing it away from his face and tucking a longer piece behind his hair. “If you’re going to work on the fire,” he says, still in a low murmur so as not to disturb their sleeping friends, “you should really tie it back.” 

“Maybe,” Keith says with an unconcerned shrug. He takes the bowl of batter from Shiro and spoons out enough to make two rotund disks of pancake. 

Shiro watches him, knees tucked up to his chin, feeling sleepy as he watches Keith work. 

They have the whole day in front of them and for now, Shiro just enjoys the quiet before the chaos of the other Paladins waking up launches them into their day. For now, it’s just Keith and Shiro. 

It’s a nice feeling. 

“Do you need to do your morning meditation?” Keith asks.

“I was thinking I’d do it in the afternoon,” Shiro says with a shrug. “After we’re all started on the day. Make it an afternoon meditation.”

Keith chuckles. “Will you want company?” 

Shiro tilts his head. “Do you want to join me?”

“Yeah,” Keith says. Shiro loves how he just asks for it. “But it’s okay if you’d rather be on your own.” 

“I’d always much rather be with you,” Shiro says and he doesn’t mean for it to sound as weighted as it does. Keith doesn’t react beyond a small smile and nod, turning back to flip the pancakes in the pan. 

Shiro sneaks the first one Keith finishes, eating it without any dressings and just picking it apart with his fingers. Keith snorts at him, clearly amused, but refuses to let him steal any others. 

“At least put some jam on them,” Keith says. “Don’t be a madman.” 

Shiro leans over Keith’s shoulders to snag another one despite Keith’s bark of laughter and makes a show of eating it without any jam. Keith looks playfully outraged. 

Their antics, plus the smell of pancakes, is what finally wakes the other Paladins up. 

-

“These sessions are coming to an end,” his therapist says a few weeks out from the end of his CPT sessions. “We’ll start to transition out of it, if you feel ready. We can begin to focus on Cognitive Behavior Therapy.” 

Shiro nods, feeling a profound sense of relief. “Okay.” 

“We’ve been tackling the source of your trauma,” Dr. Santiago says as she flips through a PADD. “And you’ve been marking an improvement in your symptoms. So, we can transition into sessions where we discuss whatever’s on your mind.” 

In the beginning, she’d warned him that talk therapy doesn’t work for PTSD, but it is a good maintenance protocol for after the sessions. It’s true that Shiro’s been feeling better since these sessions have started, no matter how difficult they are and how raw he feels afterwards. 

“As we move forward, we’ll continue to practice practical skills and tools you can use to manage your symptoms. We have some of the breathing exercises down already, but we’ll look at other holistic practices like mindfulness.” 

Shiro’s familiar with mindfulness. He’s familiar with body scans, deep breathing, guided meditations, and the like. He’s gone through plenty of things like that to supplement all his many hospital visits, back in the day. 

He’s fallen out of practice with it all, never really did quite manage to incorporate it into his routine, but he’s aware of the practice. 

“Mindfulness,” Dr. Santiago says, nodding her head in approval, “is about the ability to pay attention _on purpose_ to the present moment, without judgement or elaboration.” She pauses, letting that sink in. “Specifically, you want to look at yourself holistically— how you can be in the present moment without ruminating or avoiding thoughts, feelings, or behavioral urges.” 

Shiro understands the logics of it: start in the body, learn how to control the body, and from there mindfulness practice can follow. Shiro knows it will help him, since this body still feels like something that isn’t his own. 

He can develop the skills to engage and experience these painful emotions and use this knowledge to keep from being overwhelmed. He can tolerate this. He can tolerate so much, he knows. 

That, and just talking through what’s on his mind, the ways in which he can improve his anxiety and depression, his lingering PTSD symptoms, is an appealing one. 

“For now, though,” she says. “We still have work to do. Why don’t I lead you through a guided meditation right now? How does that sound?” 

“Perfect,” Shiro says and relaxes his shoulders. 

-

“You and Keith were laughing a lot this morning,” Lance says that afternoon. Shiro’s pulled him away into the forest to help collect firewood while the others nap. It’s a bit hard to nap with Lance around, considering he talks so loudly. 

“Were we?” Shiro asks as he picks up a hefty branch and sets it in Lance’s upturned arms. 

“Yeah,” Lance says, following behind him. “Even when you thought you were being quiet. What was so funny?” 

“Pancakes are hilarious,” Shiro says. He flashes a grin at Lance, but Lance just rolls his eyes. Shiro shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s easy to laugh with Keith.”

“You are literally the only one who thinks that,” Lance says. “I can count on one hand the number of times any of the rest of us have made him laugh. Sometimes it feels impossible to make him even smile.” Lance pauses and adds, “Which is _weird,_ because I am _hilarious._ He just doesn’t get it.”

Shiro laughs.

Lance points, a worthy endeavor since he’s holding so much firewood. “There, see? I’m a riot!” 

“Keith just has a weird sense of humor,” Shiro says as they wander down the trail. Shiro pauses, picking up some kindling and adding it to the growing pile in Lance’s arms. He glances at it. “Should we switch off? I can carry and you can collect.”

Lance huffs. “I can carry firewood, Shiro! Just because I’m not a big muscley man like you doesn’t mean I can’t handle some heavy lifting.” 

“Fair enough,” Shiro chuckles, holding his hands up in surrender. 

“Anyway,” Lance says as they walk. “I just mean… It’s good. That you two can laugh together.” 

Shiro glances at him, eyebrows lifted. Lance shrugs, nearly knocking all the wood down onto the ground anyway. 

“It’s just,” Lance says. “I think… I mean.” He fumbles a little, looking for the words. “We all went through a lot and everybody else can laugh a lot now. But you know… you guys being able to laugh is good, too. I guess. I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

“I think I get it,” Shiro says. He smiles. “You were worried about us.” 

“Don’t tell Keith. He’ll tease me.” 

“Your secret is safe with me,” Shiro says with a wink. It makes Lance blush. Shiro smiles and shrugs. “But, yeah. Guess therapy is good for something.” 

They wander around in silence, collecting enough firewood until Shiro suggests they start heading back towards the camp. Enough time has passed that he’s sure that the others will start to wake up from their naps soon. Lance nods, walking along beside him. 

“It really has helped, huh?” Lance asks. When Shiro glances at him, he elaborates, “Talking with someone.”

Shiro nods. “It… I spent a long time thinking it wasn’t for me.” 

Lance hums, looking up at the trees above them. “Yeah.” He swallows. “What you’re doing… It sounds scary. Like— exposure therapy.” 

Shiro feels a small coil of anxiety in his gut, talking about it so openly. It’s strange, really, to talk about it with Lance. Not because it’s Lance, but just in general. Shiro’s still not great about talking about his experiences with anyone who isn’t Keith. 

But Shiro takes a deep breath and pushes past it. “I guess. I mean. I think it’s helped me. But I’m not an expert.” 

Lance kicks his feet across the ground, scattering pebbles, looking thoughtful. “Mine just talks to me.” 

“I think that’s fine,” Shiro says with a small smile. “Not every person who experiences a bad thing gets… ends up with PTSD, Lance. That doesn’t mean I had it better or worse than you.” 

“I know,” Lance says. He pauses in his walk, clenching the branches in his arms tightly. He takes a moment to collect his thoughts, and Shiro waits, patient and silent. 

Lance studies the firewood.

“What you went through,” Lance says. “It was pretty bad. I mean. I know all of us, too. But you…”

He trails off into a mumble. Before, Shiro would shy away from the conversation, sure that Lance was pitying him and wanting to avoid that no matter what. But Shiro sees the tension in Lance’s shoulders, the pinch to the corners of his eyes, the worried line of his frown. 

“Hey, Lance?” 

“Yeah?”

“I know you felt guilty about what happened to me. Guilty you didn’t notice after I— disappeared,” Shiro says. Lance looks frozen in place, his eyes wide. He looks like he’s about to drop the firewood he’s holding. Shiro clears his throat. “But… But, you know that wasn’t your fault, right?” 

“I—” 

“It wasn’t your fault.” 

Lance stares at him, his eyes large. Shiro steps closer, taking up the firewood from his arms. He smiles at him, thinking that it’d probably be better to hug him, but not wanting to push it so far. The words sit heavy in his chest. 

Lance’s expression wobbles, his eyes going glassy. He ducks his head, sniffling. “I— yeah. Yeah.” 

He doesn’t sound like he believes Shiro, and Shiro understands that, isn’t surprised, even if he wishes it could be so easy. It’s a step, though. It’s better than nothing. He’ll say it again, again and again if he has to, just to make sure that Lance understands. 

“I’m glad you’re here, Lance,” Shiro says. “You did well.”

Lance rubs at his eyes and then punches Shiro in the arm. “Let’s get back to the others before I start crying.” 

He hovers close to Shiro the entire walk back. 

-

“I’d like to try something a little bit different for your homework this week,” Dr. Santiago says, towards the end of their session for the week. 

He’s been through many sessions with her at this point and with it, Shiro’s found a sense of peace going to therapy. He’s past the point of fearing a breakdown or crying, at least because he knows that even if he does, it’s for a reason, and it’s just another step forward. 

He's used to the homework from CPT, but they’ve since transitioned into CBT. It’s different, to talk without a set game plan or treatment plan, but Shiro finds that he likes the openness of their sessions, how he can talk about whatever it is he’s thinking about that week, and keep honing the tools she’s helped him learn.

He tilts his head. “What do you have in mind?” 

“Well,” she says, “Since we’re still focusing on practicing mindfulness, I thought something along those lines.” 

“I’ve been doing the meditations,” Shiro says with a frown.

“I know, and that’s great,” she agrees. “I meant… in regard to changing negative self-talk and turning it into something more positive.” She pauses and doesn’t seem disappointed when Shiro isn’t sure what to say. “You’ve often expressed discomfort with opening yourself up. You only feel comfortable with Keith. But you feel guilty when you feel you’re putting ‘too much’ on his shoulders.”

Shiro shifts uncomfortably in his chair, looking down at his hands. He forces them to unclench. “Right.” 

He likes Dr. Santiago. She’s a good therapist, and a good fit for what he needs. He’s taken well to CBT with all the background he’s had leading up to it, including the trust and rapport he’s built with her. 

He talks and he talks and he talks in long, rambling strings, but she laughs at his jokes sometimes and never talks down to him, only ever follows up his circular talk with _And why is that a bad thing?_ or _I think you know the answer, don’t you?_

He's still working on being better about homework. Sometimes, he tries, and sometimes he succeeds. Other times, as Dr. Santiago reminds him, it’s an opportunity to practice self-compassion: he didn’t complete the homework, but there’s always next time. He tried, and sometimes that’s enough. 

“My thought is…” she says. “Why don’t you practice being vulnerable with your friends?” 

“Uh.” 

“You have that camping trip this weekend,” Dr. Santiago continues. “You’ve reacted well to flooding techniques before. So let’s practice.” 

Shiro feels that familiar shiver of anxiety and he knows it’s something he needs to lean into. He can’t run away just because the thought of vulnerability terrifies him. She’s right, after all— he’s talked about it a lot with her, that feeling of disconnect from the rest of his team, how he keeps everyone at a distance.

He can’t change it if he isn’t willing to take that chance. He knows this. It’s still terrifying. 

“Let’s work on a goal that’s doable, then,” Dr. Santiago says, rising to make him another cup of tea. 

-

The second night camping, Shiro wakes up from a nightmare. He doesn’t wake up shouting, desperate and disoriented. He just startles awake, like he was falling and was jolted out of it. He’s curled around Keith again. Keith doesn’t move as Shiro slowly untangles himself from around him. 

Shiro tries to fall back asleep, but he’s familiar enough with his sleeping habits to know it’s not going to happen. He stares at the ceiling of the tent and tries some practiced, focused breathing. He does the distraction techniques that tend to work for him— multiplication tables, the alphabet backwards. When those don’t work, he tries thinking of a random category and finding an item that fits each letter of the alphabet. Fruits. A for apple. B for banana. C for… cantaloupe? 

Sighing, Shiro sits up, slips out of his sleeping bag, and slowly unzips the tent so he won’t disturb Keith.

The fire’s nearly gone out, but even in the low light, Shiro can make out Pidge sitting on a log. She’s just sitting, staring into the fading embers. There’s no technology with her, no screen or computer or something she’s tinkering with. Just her, alone. 

She looks strangely vulnerable, just sitting in the dying firelight, surrounded by the forest and nothing else. She doesn’t startle when Shiro approaches her, making sure his footsteps are loud enough that she’ll hear him coming. 

She looks up once he’s close enough, and scoots down the log to make space for him. It’s as much an invitation as anything else. 

Shiro sits down beside her. “Should I build the fire back up?” 

He keeps his voice low, aware of the other Paladins around them still sleeping. 

Pidge shakes her head. “Nah.”

“How long have you been awake?” 

Pidge shrugs. “I don’t really sleep most nights.” 

Shiro wonders if she’d been awake the night before. He’s not the only one who’s noticed the heavy bags under her eyes. She rubs at her face but doesn’t seem bothered that Shiro’s finding her like this. 

Shiro picks up a thick piece of wood and sets it on the fire. It’s a peace offering and a statement: he’s not leaving her out here. As the flames build up, he can see Pidge’s smile. 

“I used to like staying up really late,” Pidge says. “Now I just wish I could sleep.”

“You know I get it,” Shiro says. Just like he’s heard their friends wake up from nightmares since the war’s end, he knows they’ve heard him, too. Shiro finds, in the near dark, that it’s easy to be vulnerable with it, especially for how easily Pidge offered it first. “I don’t sleep much, either. It’s getting better, but…” He shrugs. “I’ve been awake in that tent for about two hours now by my count.” 

Pidge nods, and then leans into his side, her head on his shoulder. She looks so small next to him, and it occurs to him, not for the first time, just how young she truly is— how young they all were, and are, still. 

He wraps his arm around her to stave off the night chill. 

“I hate the silence when I’m alone,” Shiro says. 

“Me too,” Pidge says. She frowns and slings her arm around his middle instead so that she’s clinging to him, too.

They stare into the fire together, and it’s a little easier after that. 

-

“I just— it’s a lot,” Shiro admits, clenching his hands together. “We’re friends, but I— I don’t—” He struggles to find the words. He shakes his head. “I don’t want to do too much at once.” 

“Do you feel that saying one scary thing to them each is too much for them?” Dr. Santiago asks. When Shiro doesn’t answer, she presses: “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Shiro says, waffling. She raises her eyebrows at him and says nothing more, waiting for him to find the words. She very rarely accepts his lack of answers as answer. 

She’s good at her job. She knows when to press, when to niggle at his words, when to make him self-examine. Other times, she knows when to let it lie, to let Shiro consider it himself and come back the next week with deeper insights. 

“I’ve asked you this before: which pain is greater?” she says. “That’s what you have to ask yourself. Which is greater? Never reaching out and feeling this way… or reaching out and it being frightening?” 

Shiro nods, looking down. He sighs. He knows she’s right.

“There’s always a threshold,” she says. “You know this. You’ve felt it. It’s a matter of picking what will be best for you— continuing this way or taking that step for something new.” 

“I know,” Shiro says and he does. 

-

The trip is, in the end, a fun one. They have plenty of food and plenty of laughter. They spend most of the second day swimming in the morning and then hiking in the afternoon. On their third day, they lounge around camp, half of them going off on a hike while the others nap. It’s a lazy, unstructured vacation, and it’s fun. Shiro finds himself enjoying it, genuinely enjoying it.

They’ll head back home tomorrow, and Shiro’s sad to say goodbye to their little camping site. He helps with tasks, lazes around with the rest of them, laughs when they run out of coffee and Keith swears up a storm, and does his daily meditation in the afternoon. The first day, Keith joins him, and by the second day, all of them join him— and at least try. 

They’ll have one last meal tonight around the campfire, but for now, they’re wasting the afternoon at the lake again. Shiro’s back at his favorite spot on the flattened rock outcropping, Keith beside him. He’s wearing Keith’s hat again while Keith lounges in his shades, a little tanner than he was at the start of the weekend. 

Shiro isn’t wearing his shirt this time, trusting that even if, somehow, the Paladins noticed his scars, they wouldn’t poke at them (literally or figuratively). It’s much more comfortable to be bare chested in this heat, anyway. He tucks his hands behind his head, sunbathing, and just breathes. 

The others are swimming towards a little island about a quarter kilometer out in the lake. Keith watches them like a hawk, prepared to dive in and swim out to them should they need it, despite the fact that he’s easily the weakest swimmer amongst the lot of them. 

“You can relax, too,” Shiro teases, nudging Keith’s thigh with his foot. Keith swats him away playfully. 

“No lifeguard on duty,” Keith says. 

“So you’re taking up the mantle?” Shiro asks, laughing as he sits up to view the Paladins’ progress. They’re closer to the island now than they are the shore. “You’re a mother hen.” 

“Hmph,” Keith says and doesn’t deny it. He eyes Shiro’s shoulders. “Do you need more sunscreen?”

“I think I’m fine,” Shiro says, rubbing his hands over the back of his neck and shoulders just to double-check. 

Shiro watches their friends swim away in the distance. It was a stupid impulse that sent them out towards that island, some sort of dumb joke about claiming a new spot for the Paladins of Voltron. _We can name the island!_ Lance called as a way to coax Pidge into joining. _We’ll be remembered!_

Overdramatic and stupid, and yet the four of them are out there, laughing and carrying on. They’re so young, Shiro thinks. They’re all young, but them especially. Keith used to be that young, too. 

Shiro wonders if Keith talks to his therapist about that lost time— about coming back suddenly older than his peers. He wonders if Keith thinks about it, or what he thinks about it when he does. 

Shiro knows he’s young, too. But he feels old, some days. He feels infinitely old, like he aged too much in space. He was always prepared to waste away in his body long ago. He’s still getting used to the idea of what it means to be young, what it means to be old, what it means to not have everything accomplished yet— and how that’s okay. 

“They’re going to make it,” Shiro says, glancing at Keith. He doubts it’ll dissuade Keith from worrying. 

Sure enough, Keith’s still watching them closely. Just in case. He hums. “And then ‘we’ll be remembered’, right? Lance is an idiot.”

He says it far too fondly to fool Shiro. He laughs softly, watching the distant splashes as the Paladins swim ever-closer towards that little island. 

“It is a little silly,” Shiro says. “I think we’re already going to be remembered.” 

Keith snorts. “We made sure of that, huh?”

A moment lapses between them. Shiro’s heart kicks up a bit in his chest, the way it always does when he thinks of something to say, something that might be too exposing. 

But it’s Keith. It’s always been easier with Keith. 

“Before all of this,” Shiro says, staring out at the glittering lake. “I didn’t care about what people would think of _me_ after I died.” 

Keith is quiet beside him, only the slightest tension in his shoulders betraying his distress at the topic. Keith never did like hearing about Shiro’s mortality, inevitable though it is. But he’s listening. Of course he’s listening. 

Keith always listens to him. 

Shiro licks his lips, steeling himself. “Even now, I feel that way. I… well.” 

“Tell me,” Keith says gently when Shiro pauses. 

“I’d have rather left a lasting impact on the world… known that I did something good. I’d have rather been remembered for what I did, not who I was.” Shiro pauses, letting those words drift away between them. 

He thinks of the way people used to regard him, back in the days when he was just a hotshot pilot, the Golden Boy. No defender of a universe, no soldier, no monster. Just Lieutenant Takashi Shirogane. 

Everyone had an image of him. But nobody knew him. Not before Keith. 

“I wanted to leave something behind that I would be remembered for,” Shiro says. “It felt— it felt like its own kind of immortality, you know? Even if nobody knew _me_ , they’d know what I did.” He looks up at the sky then, taking a deep breath. “I’d be immortal that way. In a small way.” 

Keith says nothing and Shiro can feel his eyes on him. But Shiro turns his eyes back towards the lake, the glittering light off its surface, the sun sinking lower and lower. The world is awash in gold and red. He can feel Keith beside him, radiating heat, blissfully and perfectly alive. 

He lets himself feel everything— the sound of the breeze wisping through the world around them, the heat of the dying sun, the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He’s here. 

“I guess we got that,” Shiro finally says. “Immortality. Everybody’s going to remember Voltron.”

“Guess so,” Keith says.

“We’ll be remembered, even if nobody ever knows who I was or what I was like. Just what I did. What we did.” 

“We know you, though,” Keith says and Shiro finally turns his head to look at Keith. Keith’s staring at their hands, inches apart on the flat rock, nearly touching. “I know you.” Keith looks up, meeting his eyes. “I’ll remember you. Always.” He swallows and adds, “You, Shiro. Not what you did or what you accomplished. Who you are.” 

The words hold steady between them. 

“I know who you are,” Keith says quietly. 

His words make Shiro want to cry. He feels the sting of tears at the backs of his eyes and he shields his eyes from the sun, using that as an excuse to rub at his face and banish the urge. He knows it doesn’t fool Keith, but Keith is also kind enough not to point it out or tell him it’s okay to cry. 

“… Who am I?” Shiro asks. He laughs, choking it out. “Half the time, I have no idea who I am anymore. I know what it feels like to feel like I’m literally not myself. And… sometimes I still feel that.” 

Keith hums, his brow pinching. “Do any of us know who we are?” 

Shiro laughs again, a more natural sound, although pained. “Guess so.” 

The words are heavy and they fall into silence together. Shiro’s eyes glance down at their hands on the rock. Keith’s fingers are slightly curled, his hand slim but so strong. Everything about Keith is so strong, so steady. 

Keith breathes out shakily when Shiro’s hand moves to cover Keith’s. His eyelashes dip down as he glances at their hands, then up at Shiro, then out at the lake again. 

“Sometimes…” Shiro says, voice coming out too soft. He doesn’t know if he should say it. He takes a deep breath, feeling his body— the presence of his body upon this rock, the breath in his lungs, the inhale and exhale, the presence of Keith’s warm hand beneath his. 

“Sometimes?” Keith prompts.

“Sometimes I think the real Shiro died on Kerberos.” 

The words leave him and it doesn’t make his heart thunder. It used to scare him, on the journey home to earth, in the wake of his new body, of understanding there were hundreds of clones of him, all destroyed, but still _alive._ He’d wondered, then, how many more might be out there, if any. How many Haggar might have gone through. If, maybe, the real Shiro is long gone, many clone bodies over. 

The thought used to debilitate him. He couldn’t even think of it. It’d launch him into a panic attack— unable to breathe, unable to focus, unable to feel anything. He’d go numb, close the thought down, and refuse to think of it again. 

Now, he can look at it at least somewhat objectively. It’s still a terrifying thought, but if it’s true— he’s still here. He’s still Shiro. Maybe a different one, but still Shiro. He’ll have to deal the best way he can. He’ll have to survive. For all the Shiros out there who didn’t. 

Shiro wants to be alive. He’s always wanted that. 

He’s grateful, every day, for Keith bringing him home again. 

Keith takes a deep breath as he processes the words. Shiro fears he’ll respond with some insistence, with some dismissal, in an effort to be kind, to reassure. 

Instead, Keith says, “Sometimes I think the real Keith died in that desert.” 

Shiro knows very little of what became of Keith in the time he was away. Shiro’s been able to piece it together— that day in the shack, seeing the detritus of a lonely boy in mourning, the way Keith still looks haunted when he’s left alone to his own thoughts, the distress at any pain coming to Shiro. The fact that, even after the war, Keith never seemed too eager to return to that shack or those mountains. 

Shiro, of course, knows the haunted look in Keith’s eyes too well. And he hates that he’s the reason for it. Even if they’ve never talked about it, even if he knows Keith would never blame him, if there is blame to be had, it’s Shiro’s. 

No, he thinks. That isn’t true. It’s not Shiro’s fault. It’s no one’s fault. 

Shiro squeezes his hand and Keith almost smiles. He turns his hand and squeezes back, breathing out in a shaky exhale. 

“… If we’re not the same,” Keith says, staring at the water, “then that’s how it is. This Keith likes this Shiro.” 

Shiro smiles, his heart cracking, and he laughs against the sting of tears he can’t fight this time. He lets them well up before blinking them away. 

Keith turns to him then, his other hand lifting to touch Shiro’s cheek. There are no tears for him to wipe away, but he does the gesture anyway, his thumbs wiping across Shiro’s cheekbone. It’s these touches, the way Keith always gravitates to him, that lets Shiro hope. 

Nothing is holding him back, just Shiro himself. 

It’s tiring, sometimes, to process all the things that are wrong with him, all the ways he still feels broken. He joked with his therapist once about it. She asked him how he was and he’d laughed, joking, _Ha, I’m never better!_

Later in their session, he’d curled in on himself and fought back tears, wanting to sob, _I’m_ never _better._

Strange, how easily he can deflect his thoughts. He doesn’t want to run from it anymore. He doesn’t want to run from anything anymore. He can see the ways he’s getting better. He wants to keep trying. 

Shiro’s voice is wobbly when he says, “This Shiro likes this Keith, too.” 

He smiles at Keith, helpless and in love. He’s always helpless and in love when it comes to Keith. Keith’s answering smile is shy, but there’s a hopeful glint to his eye as he looks at Shiro. Hope is a precious thing. 

It feels inevitable when he leans closer towards Keith. 

He hesitates, but only to watch Keith’s reaction. Of course Keith is there to meet him. As soon as Shiro shifts closer, Keith is there to meet him— because of course Keith would always meet him halfway. 

When they kiss for the first time, it feels as easy as breathing. Shiro forgets to focus on anything but Keith in that moment. 

He wants to remember this, always. 

He kisses Keith and feels Keith’s smile, feels Keith shift closer and cup his jaw, kissing him with that same quiet, intense devotion he’s always paid to Shiro. He feels the weight of Keith’s hand on him, his lips against his. He feels Keith’s breath. He licks Keith’s mouth and feels the sunshine all around them. 

A part of Shiro is still terrified, still worried he can never be worthy of this. But the louder part of him wants to have this, wants to accept it— wants to keep working, always, so that he can be worthy of it. Of Keith. 

“Shiro,” Keith whispers and it sounds like all the stars cradled between them. 

Shiro kisses Keith and tastes his smile. 

-

Everything is temporary. Feelings are temporary. Life is temporary. 

Once, so often, sometimes still, the knowledge terrifies Shiro. He knows the temporary nature of life better than most— he’s already died once, already resigned himself to dying a death far different from what he felt. He’s fallen in love and fallen out of love. He’s made friends and lost friends. He’s chased dreams, obtained dreams, and been left unsure of what’s left. 

The pain he feels, he knows, is also temporary. That, too, will fade with time. A new pain might come, and that, too, might fade with time. 

There’s a simplicity in that reality. There’s almost a relief— the suffocation he feels, the crushing pain he feels, that won’t last forever. That, too, will fade. 

He’s doing the best he can. Somedays, that’s all he can say. Over and over again. 

-

Shiro and Keith stay there on that rock, kissing and kissing and _kissing_. Shiro tangles his hand in Keith’s hair and cradles him close. He loves the feeling of it, the weight of Keith’s body against his, the gentle curl of Keith’s hair, the breathless pillow of his lips. 

They only break apart when they hear the Paladins swimming back towards the shore, their voices carrying across the water. 

Shiro draws away, feeling breathless. He doesn’t dare to pull his eyes away from Keith. 

“I love you,” he says, three long-overdue words. 

Keith makes a sound then, so soft, like he’s been cracked in two. He presses his forehead to Shiro’s and holds tight. He clenches his eyes shut, but not before Shiro sees them go glassy.

He should have told Keith ages ago. He knows this. Keith has always, always deserved to know that he is loved, that he is cherished, that he is everything.

And he is. He is everything.

“Your face is getting sunburned, I think,” Keith murmurs when they draw away again.

“I think I’m just blushing,” Shiro says and laughs, feeling giddy.

Keith pokes his cheek and it stings. So, maybe sunburn and blush at once. Keith’s kiss helps to distract him, at least, his touch gentle against his mouth, whispering Shiro’s name. 

“I love you, too,” Keith says once the Paladins come back to shore. He throws the towels down to them, then takes Shiro’s hand so they can head back to camp in front of them. 

If the others notice that they’re holding hands, they don’t make a big deal about it. The walk back to camp is a pleasant one, and everyone gets changed and washed up, ready for dinner. Hunk makes it a big production, and everyone helps out with the chopping, cleaning, and cooking. 

Lance pulls out a bottle of apple cider he saved for the last night, and while they wait for dinner to cook, they pour generous helpings in each cup. There’s no alcohol, but it feels like they’re drunk on happiness and sunshine, a familiar, buzzing energy drifting in the group as they gather around the fire. 

It feels like they’ve shed something or at least turned a corner. Even if there’s still darkness on the horizon, or darkness in their past, they’re stepping forward. That’s more than many can say, Shiro knows. They’re lucky. They’re alive. They’re together.

Shiro catches Keith’s eye and smiles, kissing his cheek. Keith ended up sun-kissed today too, but Shiro’s attention makes his cheeks flame red. 

Shiro feels like he’s flying. He knows Dr. Santiago will be proud of him when he tells her how well his homework went this weekend. 

_It might feel like homework now,_ she’d told him before he left. _But if you keep practicing it, it will eventually feel natural. It won’t feel like you’re forcing it. It will just be friendship._

“Raise a toast!” Lance yells, shoving his drink so high in the air so quickly that he nearly sloshes it all over himself. “Toast, to Team Voltron! Congrats on one year of official peacetime!” 

The words take Shiro by surprise, the words startling into him with their truth— it’s been a year since ‘official’ peacetime. Real, honest to god-and-the-stars peacetime. The war is over. 

“Cheers!” everyone says, hooting and hollering as they shove their cups together, definitely sloshing drinks all over their hands this time. Shiro still feels a little shell-shocked.

Keith looks at his stupefied expression and laughs in sympathy. He cups Shiro’s chin and kisses him and Pidge snorts beside them and Hunk chokes on his drink, but otherwise there isn’t a reaction that Shiro cares about beyond smiling stupidly at Keith when they draw back.

“Did you forget?” Keith asks. 

“No,” Shiro says. “I mean, I knew it’d been a year. I just didn’t make the connection.” 

It’s one of those things that he’s taken for granted or knew but never paid attention to. He really does need to practice mindfulness. Keith’s expression is amused. 

There’s more cider, and food, and laughing, and the night drapes around them like a warm blanket, the stars twinkling above them. They’re here, together, and having fun. It’s a fun night, even if there’s a lingering melancholy about returning home tomorrow.

But for tonight, they have each other and the stars. They drink and cheers each other, taking turns complimenting each other until it becomes too much and they’re too embarrassed to continue. Shiro hides his face against Keith’s neck when the others try to compliment him. His ears turn pink. Keith kisses his temple, chuckling in his ear. 

He loves them all. 

The thought floods through him, warm like any summer day. He drinks his cider and laughs with them all, but he feels like he might burst with affection. He looks at each of them around the fire and feels, finally, like he’s at peace. 

Like he’s well and truly alive, and happy to be so. 

He realizes he’s never actually said aloud that he loves them all, that they’re not just his friends— they’re family to him now. 

He fights back against the shame of it. He takes a deep breath, acknowledging the feeling, and then lets it go. 

It’s okay, he reminds himself. _I am worthy of love and attention._

He repeats it to himself a few times. Even if he can’t quite believe it yet, not fully, it’s still a step. And, someday, he’ll feel it for real, just as real as the weight of Keith’s hand on his thigh. 

So instead of the guilt, he focuses on the gratitude, on the joy— of knowing now that he can say it to his family, and that they’re all here to hear it. 

He must be making an odd expression, since Pidge laughs at him and Keith tilts his head, nudging his shoulder. 

It’s now or never. Shiro laughs, raising his cup for his own toast. 

“I love you all,” he says, smiling. “I— sorry if I haven’t said it. But, I’m glad you’re all here.”

Silence follows the statement, although Shiro isn’t afraid of it. He lets the words sink in. He watches each Paladins’ expression bloom wide in surprise. 

He expects the group hug and opens his arms to catch Pidge as she initiates it, diving into his arms. The others are quick behind, flopping all around with huge _awwww_ ’s, clinging to Shiro tight. It makes Shiro laugh, hugging back as best he can as Pidge smushes her face against his chest, Hunk elbows him in the gut, and he can feel Keith’s breath damp and warm against the back of his neck. 

They hug for a long time, and it’s ridiculous but warming, even if they end up spilling cider everywhere. 

There’s still a lot that he needs to unravel, he knows. Still so much he has to work on, new pathways in his mind he needs to form— long-held assumptions and hurtful ways of viewing himself. He knows there’s still a lot he has left to do.

He used to think it’d be too much, that it’d be everything at once. He thought, perhaps, he would always be something broken. But the reality is that it isn’t an unleashing wave but just one step at a time. Little by little. One drop of water at a time. 

Healing isn’t linear: it’s oceanic. 

It’s wading into the water and knowing it’s safe. It’s dropping down into the waves, letting the silence wash over him, and knowing it won’t always hurt. 

As Shiro watches his family around the fire, feeling his body, feeling the gentle weight of Keith’s hand in his, he knows they’re taking those steps. He reminds himself that they all deserve to feel okay, that they’re all going to be okay. 

He’s going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Some resources used in this fic:  
> \- [MentalHealth.gov](https://www.mentalhealth.gov/)  
> \- [National Center for PTSD](https://www.ptsd.va.gov/) and [its decision aid for how to treat PTSD](https://www.ptsd.va.gov/apps/decisionaid/index.aspx)  
> \- The "traumatology" episode of the [Ologies Podcast](https://www.alieward.com/ologies/traumatology)
> 
> If you're looking into finding a therapist or counselor, I highly recommend using [Psychology Today's find-a-therapist](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists). While mostly focusing on the US, there are also therapists available in other countries around the world through this site. There is also [low-cost therapy resources](https://openpathcollective.org/) and [resources for finding therapy without insurance.](https://beingseen.org/)
> 
> Much love to you for reading. ♥ 
> 
> -
> 
> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject) (including the [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/commentbuilder)), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates responses, including:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
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> 
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